


GILL OR BE GILLED: A Polygon Dating Adventure

by greenonions



Category: Polygon/McElroy Vlogs & Podcasts RPF
Genre: Casual Sex, Choose Your Own Adventure, Communication, Coworker Hookups, Everyone lives in NYC and is single and queer, Everything Is Consensual And Good I Promise, I have never once played Dream Daddy, M/M, Marijuana Use, Mature Competent Professional Gays, Multi, Multiple Endings, Office Romance, Other Untagged Things that are surprises but if you need specific info just ask, POV Second Person, Probably also things I have forgotten to tag for, Semi-Public Sex, Super Not-Casual Sex, This has been a FUCKING journey, alcohol consumption, dating sim, good and bad endings, non-linear chapters
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-23
Updated: 2019-12-23
Packaged: 2021-02-26 02:16:49
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 52
Words: 110,801
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21918814
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/greenonions/pseuds/greenonions
Summary: Welcome to Gill Or Be Gilled! Play as Patrick Gill and pursue one of three eligible bachelors: sweet Brian, spicy Jeff, or cool Clayton. Just remember, choices YOU make affect the story, and the outcome you get may not always be the one you were looking for! Pick your path wisely - but don't be afraid to backtrack or start over if you misstep. Which of these charming boys can you sweep off his feet in a flirty office romance? Find out in GILL OR BE GILLED: A Polygon Dating Adventure!
Relationships: Brian David Gilbert/Patrick Gill, Clayton Ashley/Patrick Gill, Jeff Ramos/Patrick Gill, Minor or Background Relationship(s)
Comments: 63
Kudos: 35
Collections: Interactive Fiction/Actual ‘Choose Your Own Adventure’, Polygolidays Gift Exchange 2019!





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [puddingontheritz](https://archiveofourown.org/users/puddingontheritz/gifts).

> Looking at my own gift request submission form for this exchange, which was about a mile long, and then seeing dear sweet **puddingontheritz** submit the briefest and most open-ended request possible, really threw me for a fucking loop LOL BUT!! My brain saw the words "Dream Daddy AU" and immediately went "oh, okay, so I guess I'm gonna write a CYOA dating sim." BECAUSE THAT'S A NORMAL THING TO DO. I've been busting my ass and freaking out about this undertaking for months and I'm so glad it's finally here to share with you all, but especially pudding, my beautiful recipient who deserves everything and more this holiday season!! I hope it's everything you ever wanted!! xoxoxo 
> 
> This fic would not have been possible without my beautiful horny angel of a beta reader [Mondegreen](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mondegreen/pseuds/Mondegreen). ♥
> 
> Because this is for puddingontheritz, I've kind of used her own requests and tastes as a guideline for acceptable content. There are things I've deliberately left out of the tags in the interest of having them be surprises or reveals in the narrative of the game. HOWEVER, if you have especially powerful triggers or content-warning needs that you don't see addressed in the tags already, you can jump all the way to the very LAST chapter of this fic, where I've put in a more detailed set of warnings that **will spoil parts of the game** but should help people avoid content they're sensitive toward. :) Or just message me if you have specific questions! 
> 
> Also, just as one last reminder to cover my own ass: This is a CHOOSE YOUR OWN ADVENTURE story, dating sim-style, and the chapters are NOT MEANT TO BE READ ONE RIGHT AFTER THE OTHER IN A LINEAR ORDER. Any time you reach the end of a chapter, there should be instructions on how to proceed - either to another chapter, which hopefully I've linked up correctly, or to start over again if you've reached the end of a route. If you ever get lost, just hit the back arrow a couple of times. And please by all means OBVIOUSLY play through every route!! I WROTE A LOT OF WORDS LMAO. It'd be fun for everyone to comment on whichever ending they end up at first! (Even if you all end up at like...the same vanilla patbri ending because we're all so fuckin' predictable. BORING LOL BUT WE KNOW WHAT WE LIKE.) The CYOA format may also mean that some chapters have content that is near-identical to content in others, just based on the way the storylines sort of dovetail together. Did I mention I wrote a Lot of words... had to double up on some of 'em, okay!! Thanks for bearing with me! 
> 
> Anyway I love you, you're all beautiful, thanks for coming with me on this adventure, let's get Patrick into some dating sim shenanigans, and most importantly HAPPY HOLIDAYS PUDDING!!!!

Someone answers the door almost before you're even done knocking on it, and there's a messy rejoicing _eeyyy!!_ from within. You grin in kind; it's like _that_, then. It's like: you've barely made it across the threshold and there's already a sloshy gold solo cup being pressed into your hand. 

It's like: you don't even get it to your mouth before Allegra unceremoniously plucks it back away from you, taking a swig herself.

"Whoa, party foul, what gives?" you say.

She leans in close, gives you an eye, and growls out an incriminating, "_'Whomst.'_" And yeah, okay, maybe you deserve that. But you like to think you've learned your lesson. You must look a little pitiful, because she rolls her eyes at you, and adds, "At _least_ just stick to beer or whatever you were drinking before." 

You say nothing, but raise your hands pleadingly to Officer Frank, Booze Cop. She seems to accept that, and then lets her guard down enough to grimace. "Ugh, besides, this shit _sucks_." She passes the cup oh so kindly to Thomas instead.

"Gee, thanks, Legs." But he drinks it anyway.

You survey the scene, and it's pretty much exactly what you expected, but like, _more_. You've always been the old fart of the group, you've never denied that, but even the rest of these kids are getting a little older and chilled-er and you're surprised they had a party this rowdy in 'em. You're extra surprised that when the Official Professional Office Holiday Party disintegrated into "let's all go to someone's house and keep vibing where the Man can't see us," that that _someone_ turned out to be _Clayton_ \- there was some leap of logic there that you didn't quite follow, about him having the best house for it because he was closest, even though it meant everyone would have to haul their asses home afterward, but at least _everyone_ would have to, y'know, and like look you had like two and a half free beers at the party and then took a circuitous-ass subway ride to collect up your shit, you can't be expected to pay attention to the geographical details.

You laugh, to yourself, which gets you another Legs stinkeye. "Collect up your shit" is kind of a harsh way to think about how you like, Katamari rolled up Thombo and Allegra to drag them to the afterparty, huh. The turnout here is mainly but not entirely overlap with the work affair; Tara absolutely bailed, she's got a _kid_ now, and anyway very much did not want to see what y'all were getting up to after hours, and a few folks have some early event tomorrow, Chelsea and Petrana and you think maybe Karen, too. But Simone and Jenna made it, and you can hear Jeff giggling from the kitchen, and much like you've snagged Legs and Thomas you think Brian swung around and retrieved his sister, and there's music just barely within the bounds of apartment-complex-acceptable and Cass hands you a White Claw Pure and your grin just. Stays affixed, as you crack open your cold one and dive into the fray.

"PATRICK!" yells someone almost immediately, from a place that you think is the kitchen. When you duck your head around a corner, sure enough, there's Jeff and Susana and oh damn, Adam's here, leaning around a kitchen island arranged with tidy, generously-poured tequila shots. Oh, shit.

"Oh, shit," you laugh. There's absolutely one with your name on it, and Jeff, sitting on the one bar stool that fits in the snug space, catches your eye as he slides it toward you. He's already a little further along than you, you can tell, the way his face flushes a cute, incriminating red and he can't seem to stop from giggling, just a tiny bit, just every so often. He's got his own shot lined up, and they're all sort of hovering, waiting, not saying anything but seeming like none of them - least of all Jeff, really - are gonna take no for an answer. 

You shoot a glance back over your shoulder, but you seem to have lost Legs, and only Thomas is following behind you - looks like he abandoned the nasty gold-cup drink and Adam is pouring an extra for him, too. Well - why the hell not. What'd you come to a party full of your rowdy younger coworkers for, if not to get rowdy, too? 

"Merry Christmas," cheers Adam as you clink your shotglasses together, "and fuck winter in New York." Everyone rousingly agrees, and you laugh as you pound the shot, leaning between Jeff and Thomas, bent at the waist to hunch over the counter with everyone else. The tequila is - not the good stuff, catches on your tongue just enough to burn like _shit_ on the way down, and you forcibly focus your vision, hard, scouring the countertop for an available lime wedge. Nothing.

"Oh, shit, did I not cut enough," says Adam, apologetic but only vaguely and noncommittally so, and Susana's got hers in her mouth already so she just shrugs like _welp nothing I can do_. It's Jeff, shoulder knocking into yours, who says, "No worries, Patrick can have mine." He proffers it up to you, already tucked into the curve between his thumb and forefinger. 

His hand is. So close to your face. It makes sense to _you_.

Thomas _crows_ and Susana actually claps her fucking hands when you twist your neck around and suck the lime straight out of Jeff's hand, keeping eye contact with him for a long, dragging second before letting yours close. The citrus is a blessed relief at the back of your throat, and you can feel just the faintest edge of the hot shape of Jeff's hand against your cheekbone before you pull back and away. 

It made sense. It was _funny_, and fun, and your earlier grin hasn't left at all. But when your eyes find Jeff's again, he looks a little - overwhelmed? Starstruck? Something your drink-misty brain can't compute, but enough so that a weird little silence settles into the kitchen, and you're suddenly feeling like your face is probably pretty red, too, huh. It's a tight squeeze in here, in Clayton's tiny kitchen, and you suddenly have to bail.

"Cheers," you mumble, and then drift back into the living room, looking for the rest of what the fuck is going on in here on this day. 

Oh, god, oh no. What's going on in here is apparently: _karaoke_. This is one hundred percent Gilbert-driven, although you can see where Jenna's been a filthy enabler, and how did they get this project so far underway before you even _got here_, you were both at the same office party less than an hour ago, but you walk into the living room and Brian immediately whirls on you and points, dramatically, and cries "_Yessss_ Patrick be Fred Schneider."

"What." 

"_I can be Fred_!!" Simone insists from somewhere - oh, you spot her, her silvery dress shimmering under a lamp in the corner where she seems to have just fucking _liquefied_ into a chair, her own can of White Claw (black cherry) dangling daintily at her side. 

"You already had a turn!" Laura tells her, very considerately not also pointing out how it kind of looks like she can't even stand up right now. "Pat just got here." Her smile is wicked-nasty, and so uncannily like Brian's, and with them both focused on you you realize pretty quickly that you're not going to be able to say no, huh.

Still - "Whomst the fuck is Fred Schn--" Oh. You hear the track kick on, from wherever Jenna is gleefully, demonically KJ-ing this shit, and you do know this one. Fuck, and if you're the dude, you have to start it, too. Brian presses a microphone into your hand that you don't think is even really on, or possibly even a real microphone at all, and you just manage to catch the beat in time - 

"Ifff you see a faded sign at the - side of the road, that says - " You're stumbling through, back and forth between the lyrics on someone's laptop and Brian, who looks absolutely _overjoyed_ \- "F-fifteen miles to the - "

"_Looooove SHACK!_" he and Laura cry out in unison. 

This is - tolerable, actually. Fred Schneider, whom you are apparently portraying this evening, doesn't do a whole lot of actual melodic _singing_, so it's not all bad, to try to remember the patter of his lines while Brian and Laura belt dizzying circles around you. They harmonize faultlessly in all the right places - once or twice Brian takes the _higher_ harmony, which lowkey sends shivers up your spine, because it's so smooth and casual that it's _ridiculous_ and how does he _do_ that, how do they know to switch parts without even asking, just cocking an eyebrow and cocking a hip and singing brilliantly along? Have they _practiced_ this, dancing around their apartment with someone else, Jonah you guess, standing where you're standing, getting sung at, just waiting for the moment they could spring this trap on some unsuspecting goof-ass like you - 

God, Brian really is singing _at_ you, huh, _glitter on the mattress, glitter on the highway-ay_, throwing his non-microphone arm up high and hip-checking you until you dance, too, or approximate it anyway. You've got a good stretch of downtime every time they hit the chorus so you can pull on your Claw and limber up, or some shit, and okay, you hit the _big as a whale!_ pretty hard and Laura's laughing at you but Brian just _beams_, some little latch clicking at the back of your mind to an old door labeled _Gill and Gilbert_, and Laura steals _tin roof rusted_ \- which is obviously the funnest part - right out from under him because he doesn't seem to be quite like uhh. Fully paying attention to the song. Which is _insane_ because the instant you looked at him instead of the screen full of words you missed at least one _on the door!_ but he can sing entire four and a half minute songs - hooof, yeah, this one goes on for a while, doesn't it - with only like ten percent of his brain. _And_ he's been drinking. Insane.

When the music dies down, fading out on a line that you think was supposed to be yours but you've kind of lost the plot a little, the real world of people at this party watching you sing a song with Brian and his sister comes _super_ crashing back down on you, and you feel the panic hit you almost like a physical force. Allegra, thankfully, is the only person who seems to really see it on your face; she cackles out a laugh, but doesn't push, and all you can really do is down the rest of your Claw in a vain attempt to cool your face down and stumble over to sit, hard, in the chair on Simone's left. She lifts her empty can to yours and cheerses you, a little, halfhearted and oh, okay, smelling faintly of weed. That explains it. 

Laura's calling out for Jenna to make someone else do the tracks for a second so they can crush some Sia, but Brian's eyes have stayed on you, as you slip away, from where you practically had to forcibly dislodge his arm from your shoulders. He looks for just a beat longer, his smile going faint and funny, and then turns away, offering to man the computer himself, if someone will just get him another _drank, gawd_. Cass is headed back for another and she offers to snag him one, too. 

Your face is still - whoo, super hot. It's _hot_ in here, the desperate fake indoor-heat of a shitty New York winter, dry and stifling, and it's only been made that much worse by the crowd of the party and the booze in your system. But there's - faintly, something feels - _cool_, and it takes you a second to place that it's drifting out from the door to what must be Clayton's bedroom. God that feels nice. Offering a soft, confused apology to loopy Simone, you stumble bedroomwards; the bedroom is empty, thank god, if this turned into _that_ kind of party you really would probably have to have a talk with some of these kids about how old they actually are - but the window is wide open, the December chill eking in in a way that would probably suck ass if you were at like, a neutral 5, but you're well up to a 7 or 8 and right now it just feels _great_. You stick your head out and take a huge, clarifying breath.

It smells even more like weed out here than Simone did.

"Oh! Fuck, hey dude," because Clayton's out here, sitting on his own fire escape, alone, his deteriorating joint resting on a clumsy little disc that looks like it's made out of like, smushed together Hershey's kisses wrappers, green and red and silver for the fuckin' holidays. He's got his back leaned up against the side of his building and he's wearing a really cozy-looking knit scarf, white or cream or maybe even yellow, you can't tell in the streetlamp-lit haze. He's got one hand down at his side and the other resting, absently, on top of his own head.

"Oh hey Pat," he says, his breath coming out in wintry puffs. "You made it."

"Dude, it's a wild one in there," you say. You curl your arms up and hoist yourself out the window, too, to join him. 

"Yeah. Hence the." He waves his hands a little at his surroundings in lieu of finishing the sentence. "Help yourself to the." He waves again, more specifically.

"Oh, thanks, man. Merry Christmas." You pluck the joint up and cock it toward him in a little toast before hitting it, just a little bit - there's not much left and killing it seems rude. 

"Am I like, totally wack for bailing on a party at my own house?" asks Clayton, hands drifting higher. "I just needed like. A moment, you know."

"No, for sure. Brian just hoodwinked me into _karaoke_, you got out while you still could."

"Oh dang," laughs Clayton. "Actually kind of sorry I missed that."

"Eh, I'm a hundred percent sure Cass took an incriminating video."

"Okay sweet." 

You just - sit, with Clayton, for a moment or two more. Eventually you do start to cool back off, and you can hear some suspicious noises (dull thumping, Simone honking) from back inside the apartment that like, at least _somebody_ with a sliver of responsibility should probably go check up on, and if it ain't Clayton, ostensibly the host of this party, then it may have to be you. But you don't leave. Not just yet. You and Clay both reach for the last of the joint at the same time, and bump hands, and he laughs, a little, soft and sweet. 

"Thanks for coming, Patrick," he says. He finally turns his head from staring at the skyline to actually properly looking at you, and his smile makes you - 

Or maybe just the, it's the cold of December, you're sitting on a fire escape in nothing but a flannel worn thin from frequent wear, and that's why you shiver. You whisper, "Yeah, any time." 

"I'm gonna come back in in a second but please go make sure no one is breaking my shit. Please."

You laugh some more, pat your hand over his against the roach on its weird little tray, and leg your way back through the window, leaving the cold night air behind for the muggy, glistening party. Or, well, at least for Clayton's bedroom, which now has Allegra standing grumpily in it.

"There you are," she says. "Thought I told you to stop fucking drinking."

"Leggy," you whine, "it's a _party_, what else am I gonna - "

"What else you're _gonna_," she says, low and caustic, and oh god that took a tonal shift, what are you in trouble for this time, "is apparently find any excuse to flirt with any boy who so much as uses your whole-ass name, _Patrick_, which is _exactly_ what I knew your dumb ass was gonna - at the _work party_, seriously. At the party with people you _work_ with you can't keep it in your pants."

"Wh-- Allegra, it's not like - "

"What's it not like?"

She crosses her arms and cocks her hip and eyeballs you, again, still, and - _fuck_. You feel tequila and hard seltzer and mystery-gold-drink and beer inside you, and you feel the ghosts of so many touches against your skin - 

The hot brand of Jeff's hand on your mouth.

The warm bar of Brian's arm across your shoulders.

The cool brush of Clayton's fingers against your own. 

Fuck. _Shit_. Is it _your_ fault everyone you work with is super hot?

Allegra rolls her eyes and plants her face in her hands and shit, you probably said at least a little bit of that out loud. She oughtta cut you some slack, Legs, you're _tipsy_. "Look, if you're gonna get your leg up at the goddamn Christmas party like every bad Hallmark movie, ever, at least tell me with _whomst_ so I can put myself as far away from all of _that_ as possible. And so I can cover Thomas's eyes, he's a baby and he doesn't need to see all of that. Unless it's Thomas - oh fuck _please_ tell me it's - "

"It's not Thomas, I promise." You chuckle a little to yourself at your accidental rhyme. Thomas promise. Oh, god, maybe you do need to stop drinking. Especially if you want to uh. Get your leg up, as Legs so elegantly put it. _Leg_ makes you chuckle again. Fuck.

It's not Thomas.

It's...

> IT'S JEFF! --> PROCEED TO [CHAPTER 2](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21918814/chapters/52316251).  
IT'S BRIAN! --> SKIP TO [CHAPTER 3](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21918814/chapters/52316314).  
IT'S CLAYTON! --> SKIP TO [CHAPTER 4](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21918814/chapters/52316365).


	2. Chapter 2

You run your hand back through your hair, and you meet Allegra's eyes for just the briefest flicker of a moment again before your gaze slips past her, trying to see back out into the apartment, trying to get a handle on what's going on. You still don't see--

You grin. "Well Allegra, if you can't stand the heat, stay out of the kitchen," you tell her. You add, "Because like. I'm assuming Jeff is still in the kitchen. Which is where the heat will be."

"Gross," she deadpans, but she's grinning at you, too. "Aight, aight. Good luck out there, _sport_." She chucks you in the arm. "Don't do anything I wouldn't do." 

"Except Jeff."

"Correct, I absolutely would not do that."

You sidle past her, bumping your shoulder into hers on purpose as you do, and you can hear her behind you, sticking her own head out the window. "Nice! Thought I smelled that good shit--" You'll let her figure out on her own that you and Clayton pretty much finished it off and there probably isn't any left for her.

The living room seems a lot quieter than before as you pass through on your way back to the kitchen. You catch a few snippets of conversation - oh, apparently a neighbor _did_ complain about the music noise, whoooops - and get a glimpse of where maybe some furniture has been tipped over, for some reason, but nothing looks _broken_-broken, so your responsibilities to Clayton feel upheld. Brian and Simone are now attempting to - competitively, somehow? - balance empty cider bottles on their heads. At least - you hope they're empty. You turn a blind eye and press forward. 

In the kitchen are Thomas, Jenna, and - okay, okay - Jeff. He's the only one who doesn't have his back to you, right as you walk in, and you catch each other's eye almost immediately, and he looks - he looks _good_, is the thing. He and Brian finally got those _stupid_ E3 retro gamer T-shirts out for production, just in time to capitalize on holiday shopping, and they made them in a bunch of colors, though you opted for just the black one, when they offered. Jeff's is a soft, dark maroon, which you know now because he wore it to the party, because of course he did, and it's just. Such a good color on him, the way it complements his complexion, the way it echoes the tipsy flush across his cheekbones and down his neck, and oh shit okay you are lowkey staring and it hits you, suddenly: you are actually like. Gonna try to _do this_ tonight. Deep breath. Okay.

You feel like it should be - overwhelming, should be some big fucking deal. It's almost more of a shock when it just - _isn't_. It's, like, a small deal. Or a medium deal, really. It's a deal that's the exact right size. You grin, a little, at Jeff, wedge your tongue into the corner of your mouth, and then try to slip back in casually, like you're just jonesing for another beverage. But the kitchen is stupid small, and you're suddenly just so keyed up, kind of stupidly hot for it, and it probably comes across as, hoo, anything but. 

Fortunately, Jenna saves your ass.

"Patrick! Yes! You're allergic to stuff!" 

You freeze with your hand on the handle to the fridge door. "Uhhhh...." 

"I just think it's totally reasonable. Like it's a risk!" says Jeff.

"What - are you talking about - "

"Eating ass!" Jeff chirps, with a huge grin and another giggle into his solo cup of whatever. He winks at you, and gestures down his own torso, as if to say, _of course_. And like, of course. The shirt. The fabric bunches up a little at the sleeves, around the curves of his arms, when he leans his elbows back up on the counter, his head perched on his hands in his classic picture-of-innocence move. With his arms like that you definitely read _eat ass_ on the shirt now. Fuck, are you kind of maybe _staring_ at his body a little - 

"We're talking about some _bullshit_," says Jenna, "Pat, we need you."

"I'm not uh," you say, swallowing. "Not exactly an expert on the subject, Jenna." 

"Okay, but like - "

"I dunno, Jeff's kind of starting to bring me around," says Thomas.

"Somebody _please_ explain." 

"I'm just saying!" says Jeff, with the firm assertion of someone who's been deep in a debate for some time now. "If you have a food allergy, and you eat someone's ass after they, y'know, had that food, earlier in the day, is it a risk!" 

"Ohhh my _god_." You _snort_ with laughter, finishing your dive into the fridge and returning with a can of store-brand seltzer - Clayton buys the passionfruit flavor, which is rank, but you'll deal. You squeeze over to the counter, just to Jeff's right, and lean in, too. "What, like a gluten intolerance?"

"Exactly!" 

"I just feel like - whatever, y'know, whatever the eat-er would be reacting to would have already got processed out by the eat-ee's body!" Jenna insists. "Like the chances are fucking _wild_. There's no way."

"Well, you've heard about those people who like, died after making out with their boyfriend who ate peanut butter or whatever," says Thomas. "It seems, y'know. Possible."

"This is _so stupid_," wails Jenna, even though she's laughing. "Jeffrey. Please."

"I'm just saying," Jeff says again. He looks you dead in the eye. He's _so_ pink, and he's fully talking about ass-eating. Up close like this it's. Whoo. It's a lot to handle. "If Patrick is celiac or whatever, and Patrick eats Thomas's ass after Thomas ate like, some nice whole wheat crackers, is Thomas gonna kill him, mid-ass-eat? From the _gluten_!" 

"_From the gluten_," says Jenna, her face all the way in her hands now.

Thomas cackles, too. "That one goes down in like, one of those compilations, you know, of, of the - _wildest and wackiest ways somebody died during sex_, or whatever. Pat's legendary now."

"Well, you know," you say, and you have to turn away, or you'll blow the joke. "Even if - if the gluten thing isn't real. I couldn't. I couldn't eat Thombo's ass anyway." 

"That hurts," Thomas says.

"Why is _that_?" says Jenna in the same moment. 

"Because," you say. "I _am_ allergic to strawberries." 

The joke lands on Thomas first, and he just fucking - Citizen Kane claps for you, as you lose it and start laughing at yourself, and then it clicks with Jenna and Jeff a beat later and they crack up, too, and Jeff leans hard into your side, warm and soft and flushed and _warm_. 

You look over at him and - fuck, it just. It feels so good. To make him laugh. His whole body is shaking with it, and it makes your body shake a little, too, where you're pressed together here in Clayton's tiny kitchen. And he's so pink and he's so _close_, and there's no way you're like, totally misreading this, right? He's gotta want - Fuck, and you just want - you could just - 

He lifts a hand to wipe his eye and fumbles his elbow right into his drink, knocking it over, all down the front of you.

Holy shit, that was so very _on purpose_. You don't risk a glance at Thomas or Jenna, because that will make it even _more_ obvious, but you're sure they noticed.

"Oh my goosshh, Pat, I'm so sorry!" says Jeff, immediately dabbing at it with - uhh, his own hand, as if that's gonna do anything. His hand through your wet shirt feels _hot_ on your skin, hooo jesus. "We should - Thomas is there like a, a towel?"

"Don't see anything in here," he says. "Not about to start digging through Mr. Ashley's drawers at a shindig like this."

"I'll just run to the bathroom," you say, "to - to clean up. It'll be fine, I'm sure Clayton'll let me borrow a shirt for the rest of the night, we're mostly the same size."

"Oh em gee, you have to let me come help clean this up, this is all my fault," says Jeff. 

"I'm sure it'll be - " You're getting up to head toward the bathroom, and Jeff is right behind you. So painfully obvious.

Jenna smirks into her own drink, and quips, "_Just totally normal bathroom stuff, but there's two of us,_" affecting your Burger Chainz voice. You can't help but laugh. You deserved that.

Jeff follows you to the bathroom and as soon as you're inside with the door closed his hands are back on your soggy chest. It's not exactly a cautious, exploratory touch, either, it's a big ol' handful, and you whine because it feels _good_. Still - "Dude, that was like, the least subtle thing ever. They all have to know."

"They were all gonna know anyway, Patrick," he says. "You know we're both terrible liars." 

Jeff kisses your chin, your facial hair scraping together, and then kisses your mouth. For a good half-beat you don't manage to kiss back - just tasting the foul flavor of the mixed drink he's been nursing, head spinning a little with the heat and the spark and your own mix of things you're _under the influence_ of. There's a thin, tremulous thought in the back of your head that maybe either or both of you is drunk enough that you shouldn't be doing this, that you should wait till your head is clearer and you're not flush-faced and overheated in Clayton Ashley's bathroom with a party going on around you and a couple lungfuls of weed in your system and. And. And then you think, Fuck that, you'd do this shit stone cold sober. 

You wrap your hands around Jeff's whole-ass face and kiss him _back_, and he whines a little into your mouth and tangles his hands in your wet shirt for a moment or two before unclenching them to start unbuttoning it. You make absolutely no move to stop him. He's bright and enthusiastic against you, and it makes you wanna match his energy, rise to his occasion, tonguing excitedly into his mouth till you can kiss away the funk of his bad drink and start just tasting Jeff, the salt-tang-neutral of a good kiss. Just a - a _really_ good kiss, if you're being honest, and you don't even think that's 'cause you're tipsy, you think he's really fucking good at this. Shit, he's already got your shirt all the way open and sliding off your shoulders, he is _slick_.

"Damn, Pat," he coos against your throat, running his hand heavy up and then back down your torso, and then squeezing at your upper arms. "Fuck I knew this would be so good." 

You can't help but answer in kind, cupping one hand all the way around one side of his chest and just fucking groping him through his stupid gamer tee, feeling his nipple hard against your palm. You watch his eyes flutter shut, answering, "yeah." You surge forward to kiss him again. 

Jeff's tongue pushes into your mouth and you receive it gladly, swirling it up in your own and breathing heavy though your nose, a couple breathless broken little sounds eking out as his hot hands roam across your skin, grabby and exploratory. Eventually they come to rest in the small of your back, clutching your body close to his, and you rock forward at the hips, pressing your thighs all along his - ooh, and higher, your neck craning a little to stay affixed to him at the mouth. You feel him kinda-hard against your thigh and you're about that far along, too. Looking forward to getting farther. He seems to have the same idea; he squeezes against the span of your back and _grinds_ his hips against your thigh, whimpering out high and adorable. In an instant your hands are at the bottom hem of his shirt to twist it up and off. You toss it on top of your own on top of the toilet, and then crane down further to bite him on the chest, just once.

"Oooh, horny!" he says, and you groan, and bite him again. 

It's more of same for five more minutes, ten more minutes, so much longer than two people should reasonably be in a bathroom together cleaning up a party foul. Jeff keeps his mouth on yours, kissing deep, deep into you, palms all across your exposed skin and down to some places that _aren't_ exposed, his hands slipping inside your waistband to grab at your ass, grind your hips harder into his body. With the music largely killed out in the rest of the apartment it's quiet in here, save for the sounds of your mouths and bodies shifting, and it sounds just like, _filthy_, sweaty and breathy and trapped up in the narrow bathroom. You're so _hard_ against his belly, now, uncomfortable in your jeans and pressing at his hipbone for relief, and you can feel him throbbing at your thigh, bend your knee to give him something more to grind against, to get him whining again into the kiss.

"I'm gonna fucking come in my pants," he groans into your sternum. "What's the plan here. I want you so bad I'm down for whatever but like. _Pick_ something." 

"You got a condom?" 

"Mm, yeah, in my - uh - " He winces. There's a beat, and then you realize _why_, and you wince, too.

"Latex."

"Yeah. _Dammit_."

You take a minute to take a couple deep breaths, a sigh of regret for what could've been - god, your hands slide down to his thick ass, spanning wide across both halves of him, _fuck_ though - but like, you're already over it. "It's okay," you murmur, biting back into his mouth. "It's okay. Just wanna - touch you. It's cool."

Jeff whispers, "Touch me, Patrick."

You touch him. God, it's fucking _fire_, getting both your pants down around your knees and letting him crowd you up against the door for support, so you can slouch down enough to get the two of you lined up so _good_, wrapping your broad hand around the two of you together, slick with precome and hot and sweaty and _hot_. His cock matches the rest of him so perfectly, shorter and thicker and uncut and nestled in his thick black hair, and you roll yours against him till it catches and _drags_ and he keeps his hands roaming all over you, your back your arms your ass your chest, kissing and whining, babbling praise about your whole body, and your _cock, Patrick, fuck it sucks I can't have this inside me._ Whooo, jesus, that just about does it for you. You slide your free hand around to slip between his asscheeks, dragging like a knife up and down his crack and just, _just_ teasing at his hole, and he pops his mouth free of yours to press against your collarbone and pant and gasp and _keen_, high and quiet but maybe not quite quiet enough, as his hips thrust up against yours just once, twice again before he comes. You catch most of it in your hand and the crease of your pelvis, and with it smearing all over your dick and slicking you up, into the tunnel of your hand, grinding against his softening cock, his beard scratching up your throat, you come, too, your head thudding back into the bathroom door. 

"Fuck. _Yes_," he says, coming back to Earth way faster than you. "Pat. You are fucking perfect, oh my god."

"I can't believe," you pant out, still kind of catching your breath, your heart _pounding_ in your chest - you're sure he can feel it, where he's slumping into you. "Holy shit." 

"I hope that's a good thing, mister."

"Dude it's fucking _great_." You're pretty sure your face is stuck like this, this dopey grin he's put there. Damn. 

He finds it in himself to stand back up away from you, adjusts his spent dick a little awkwardly, squirms in his slouched-down pants. "Oh, shit," he says, abruptly, and his hand comes up to press against your chest, just under your clavicle, just for a moment; you maneuver a step or two forward to check yourself in the mirror, and it's not a _hickey_, exactly, but there are definite visible indentations of his teeth, bright red and not going anywhere. Oh, shit. Well, most of your shirts will cover that, if you keep the top button buttoned for a week or so. 

Oh, shit, you need a shirt. "We fucked up, actually, because now we have to _actually_ clean me up, _and_ clean you up."

"What, you don't wanna just go back out there with come all in your shorts?" he laughs. "That's the good thing about the bathroom, though, is that, there's towels."

"Jesus, there is absolutely no way to repay Clayton for the crimes we are about to commit, is there."

"Prrrobably not, oopsie." 

The two of you commit some crimes with a washcloth that you find in a cabinet above the toilet, and you do your best to restore your shirt to a wearable state, though it's still a little soggy, and uncomfortable as shit to put back on. Once you're as clean as you're gonna get, there's like - an awkward beat, between you, trying to figure out how best to return to the party. In the clumsy, quiet pause, he takes both your hands in his, uses it as leverage to hoist up and kiss you on the cheek, and then on the mouth, a cutesy affectation that's perfectly Jeff and really zings you right in the feels. That's - fucking adorable, and actually really, really sweet. It goes a long way to helping you get your head on straight. 

"Guess we gotta do this sooner or later," you say, smiling down at him. "M-might, might as well be sooner, before they run out of booze."

"Oh god, anything but that," he says, smiling back. 

With as much resolve and dignity as your still-kinda-tipsy ass can muster, you creak the bathroom door back open, and walk the ten-foot walk of shame back into the rest of the party. Jeff doesn't hold your hand, once you leave, but he knocks his hip into yours as you go, gives you a wink, and when the first reactions start slamming into you - Thomas's obscenely loud wolf-whistle, Simone's iconic honking laugh, Brian finding some incredibly suggestive track to blast from his laptop - Jeff is unashamed to shout them back down, _okay, well, at least I'm getting some, you salty bitches! I've been good this year!_ And you're blushing like hell, all the way up to your hairline, but you couldn't wipe the grin off your face if you tried. 

\-------

Jeff leaves earlier than you, for the holidays. He's not at work the next day, not even for a half-day (like you, slamming snooze till you just give up and turn the dang thing off, nursing a thirty-two-year-old's hangover, rolling in after lunch). You don't hear from him at all, really, but you know he's got way more holiday family commitments than you and it's a busy time of year for like, everyone. You barely hear from anyone, and Jeff's just. Part of anyone. There's a couple of holiday well-wishes in some office group chats, and he maybe uses a winky emoticon in your direction a time or two, but everything's pretty low-key, and you've got other stuff on your mind.

He's back in the office today, now, though, is the thing. It's gonna be - it's gonna be the first time you've seen each other, since the party. Y'all have a meeting together, even. And suddenly - stone cold sober, in the light of day, and having barely communicated for two weeks - you feel a hand-wringy little panic creeping up the back of your neck, itching at your hands.

You _did_ have a fuckin' great time with him at the party, is the thing. It was one part sweet, one part hot, one part salacious-office-hookup-nasty, and you're suddenly realizing just how much you've been thinking about it since then. But things have been surprisingly cool and noncommittal in the interim, and truthfully, you haven't really felt the need to make a move - which was an easy enough play while you weren't seeing each other at all, but now, with him just down the hall, suddenly feels like an assignment you've procrastinated on and left till the day of to even look at. God, fuckin' - you run your hand back through your hair and loll all the way backward in your rolly chair, realizing that you really haven't paid attention to a damn thing in the last ten minutes of footage you've been scrubbing through. This _blows_. You're not entirely sure what you want - though that itching in your hands persists, carries with it a whisper of the word _more, more_ \- and worse than that, you're not sure what _Jeff_ wants. If you say something, is it gonna make it weird? If you _don't_ say something, are you totally gonna miss your shot?

Moment of truth. Assignment's due. Make a decision, Gill.

> TURN UP THE HEAT! TALK TO JEFF ABOUT IT. --> PROCEED TO [CHAPTER 5](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21918814/chapters/52316398).  
PLAY IT COOL! LEAVE IT ALONE FOR NOW. --> PROCEED TO [CHAPTER 6](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21918814/chapters/52316440).


	3. Chapter 3

You lick your lips just a little bit in the dry stifling heat of Clayton's apartment, and let your eyes flick back to the living room before daring to meet Allegra's gaze again. You can't quite see him from here, but you can hear him, you know he's still out there. So close. You tell her, "Look, it's - it's Brian, okay?"

Allegra groans, presses her fingers to her eyes behind her glasses. "_Fucking_ \- of course it is. Yeah y'all better do that shit so far away from me, if I have to watch any more of this horrible mating ritual I'm gonna vom all my nachos out."

The blush overtakes you so hot and so fast that you cannot possibly blame it on the heat. "Wh-whaddyou mean, _mating rit--_"

"Last year I watched y'all literally have an hour and a half of foreplay every week for six months," she snarks. "We are not bringing that energy into another decade. Fuck off," she tells you; but then _she_ fucks off, actually, pushing past you toward the window, toward Clayton. "Yo I smell you out there, Clayclay, please tell me you saved me _one_ \- "

You let her go, take a deep breath, and slip back out into the living room. 

They've killed the music, so things are a little bit quieter now, but you definitely did hear that _thump_ from earlier and you do a scan trying to find the source but come up empty. Your scan does turn up: Adam with a blanket wrapped around his shoulders like a cape; Simone up out of her seat, now, looking a little more lucid; Brian and Laura, eagerly moving Clayton's coffee table out of the way to make room for - 

"Pat! Yes, a tall person!" Brian waves you over insistently and you, well, you were gonna go to him _anyway_, but it's better, being asked.

"Uh, I'm not that much taller than you, so like - "

"Yeah, yeah, but you've got arms for days," Brian insists. He picks up another blanket, slung half-folded across the back of Clayton's futon, and shoves it into your hands, then points. "See if you can anchor this to something at the top corner of the bookshelf."

The puzzle pieces kind of latch together in your head. "B--blanket fort?"

"Blanket fort!" Brian and Simone decree in unison.

You, uh. You build a blanket fort in Clayton's living room, you guess. You discover the source of the concerning noise - they tipped a lamp over in attempt one, but nothing broke, so you think everything's probably fine. Clayton and Allegra eventually do drift back in from the fire escape, and Allegra drifts _immediately_ to the kitchen, and Clayton just shakes his head and sits with Adam and lets things go on around him, and you and Brian and Simone and Laura become the architects of whatever the fuck is happening here, two quilts and six pillows and a bookshelf and a futon and the top of Clayton's entertainment center where it really does work pretty damn well to hook stuff into the hinges of the front panel. It means you can't have a TV _inside_ the fort, which is really disappointing Simone, but it's way more structurally sound. 

Personally, you - you kind of never want this fort to collapse ever for all of time, because you're worried that the bright, accomplished, adorable smile will collapse right off of Brian's face, too, and right now he looks so _proud_, to have come up with this great idea and to be executing it with any shred of success. It's an expression you're very used to on his face, and it's one of your all-time favorites. Seeing it here in a non-work, booze-glossed context is even more incredible.

When all is said and done, it's a passable fort with room for a few people inside if you squeeze close. So, naturally, poor crossfaded Simone is hogging almost the entire thing.

"This was _my idea!_" Brian insists, pouting, when he tries to crawl inside and can barely work his way around her gangly arms.

"Bri, I think if you duck in the other way over by the coffee table you can get a little more space," says Laura, who is already in and is crammed into a corner by Simone's body.

"Sucks to suck!" says Simone. "My fort now bitch! Get your trebuchets and siege me if you wanna!" 

Brian huffs and rolls his eyes. You drift around to the side of the blanket mess, though, kind of eyeballing your options, and say, "I think if we lay down flat with our legs up under the futon we can mostly be, uh, inside it. On principle, anyway."

Brian smiles at you. "Okay, well, lead the way."

You lift up the corner of the floppy grey quilt and give him a grand _after you!_ gesture, and Brian gives you a perfunctory little bow in thanks before flopping down and worming inside. It's not exactly an angle ripe for ass-staring, but you stare at his ass anyway, and then follow him in. Twisting your legs around to make your plan work is harder than it sounded in your head, especially in your big stompy boots, but once you make it there it definitely does work. Your feet are fully out in the middle of the floor now, though, and you're a little bit worried that anybody who's the next level of drunk up from you will probably definitely not be paying enough attention to not trip over them.

You lie on the floor with Brian right next to you, on your stomachs but with your heads turned to face each other. There's not enough room, like, vertically, to really do anything with your arms, but the way the blanket dips over the void in the middle where it's stretched between the furniture kind of sections the two of you off from Laura and Simone, and the thick fabric hazes over the light to a low grey-yellow and blocks out a lot of the party sound (there's Jenna cackling at something and Allegra announcing extremely loudly _I gotta GO_, but it's like they're coming from another world) and it's almost, for this moment, kind of like nothing else exists except you and Brian and this hardwood floor that's already digging an ache into your old-man hipbones.

"This is nice, Pat," Brian says, taking the words right out of your mouth.

"Mm. Mmhmm," you manage. You're keeping your wits about you fairly well, you think, but your body feels a little sleepy. His mouth is easier to look at than his eyes.

"I'm so glad the holidays are here, I feel like I really - need a break."

"You work too hard," you tell him.

"I _like_ working hard," he says, defensive. "It's fun, most of the time. But sometimes I wish - " He cuts himself off, and then doesn't un-cut himself off for a really, really long time. Longer than you think there's meant to be a gap in one person's line of dialogue or whatever. You almost say something to fill the pause, but you really want to let him finish. It sounds - important. When he finally speaks again, he says, "I really miss Gill and Gilbert."

Some old shit inside of you twists _hard_, like - like when you try to screw the cap back onto something and the threads are blown and won't catch, so you keep twisting, and twisting, and it never actually goes on. "Y...yeah?" you say. "I mean, me too, Brian, fuck - "

"It's just like," he adds, and oh, now it's coming, now he's caught the line he must have thrown out for himself, "it was so _easy_. You know? No script. And no rules except for the ones we made ourselves. No angles and no editing it was just - so _easy_," he says again. His cadence is identical the second time, like he's stuck in reshoots-to-match-existing-footage mode. Your bottlecap insides twist one more time. "Unraveled is my favorite thing I've ever birthed into this world - except for Zuko, of course, who is my biological son - "

"Gross."

"But it takes so much out of me. It's still more _work_. I miss having something fun and good we could just sort of... Relax into, at the end of a long day." The gold haze of the light through the blankets is catching on his eyelashes, which you can see really well with how close you are, from this angle, down over the top of his glasses. You notice because they're fluttering just a little, which you think means he is also looking at your mouth.

You say, "You can relax into me."

It'd be _very_ hard for anyone to say who kisses whomst, in that moment, because the next thing you're really conscious of is your lips on Brian's on Clayton's floor. Your arms are trapped by your sides and you can't reach out and hold each other, the angle's weird and the hardwood sucks ass, but you can lean your faces in and taste, and touch, and fuck thank god you're already lying down because all you wanna do is _melt_. Your bones turn liquid under the careful, slick-wet brush of Brian's lips. Your glasses click together as his tongue finds its way into your mouth and you have to nose closer, to better suck and taste at his sweetness, at the lush reality of him relaxing into you. You curl one foot up as best you can under the futon, to knock it into his, and he makes a warm pleased _hummm_ and presses his forehead to your cheek. 

"Pat Gill," he says, in that special way of his, and you know exactly what he means.

But because this is your life, it's ruined in the very next moment by the blanket slipping down and falling onto both your faces, dislodged from the stack of three or four books you used to pin it to the top of the shelf.

"Fuck!" yelps Simone. "The de Roche Fort!"

"Okay, you fully cannot name _my_ blanket fort after yourself, no matter how good the pun is!" Brian yells at her, indignant, still two inches from your face. You laugh and curl the curve of your body tighter, to knock your head into his collarbone, and then you begin the process of extricating yourself from the mess. When you reach your hand out to help Brian up, he holds it just a little longer than he needs to. Or, well. Exactly as long as you need to, you figure. 

The party soldiers on. You help Clayton put his living room back to rights, which seems the least you can do, since Brian and Laura have already moved on to trying to turn his Switch on and get MarioKart started and are not helping at all. Between moving stuff around and Brian not knowing how to work the remotes to all of Clayton's setup ("Please, okay, I can just do it, just - get up off the coffee table - "), you have a second to slip into the kitchen to grab a water. The kitchen, where Thomas and Allegra and Jeff and Jenna are cackling breathlessly at something you must have missed, and when Allegra sees you she only laughs harder. 

"Pat's allergic to _so much shit_," she points out, and for some reason that sets them all off again, and you decide you absolutely do not wanna know. You grab two cans of seltzer from Clayton's fridge - ew, yuck, he gets the passionfruit flavor, but whatever you'll deal - one for yourself and one for Brian. When you slip it into his hand, he says, "Oh, perfect, yeah, I was kind of thinking I'd be done drinking for now, whooo. Thank you, Patrick."

He doesn't say the same thing that you don't say, which is that - you both have a lot of ideas about what else you might want to do later tonight, and they include things that you'd really rather be sober for. 

And forty-five minutes of sloppy gaming and elbow-jockeying and screaming _okay, **fuck** Baby Peach!_ later, no one says a damn thing when you and Brian get up, and distribute a genuinely heartfelt round of holiday well-wishes to anyone who will receive them, and then leave the party.

Together.

In the lobby of Clayton's building, Brian asks you, totally unnecessarily, "Take me home, Pat Gill?" and you wrap your arms around his waist and kiss him again. You kiss _him_ this time, you're sure of it. It just feels so damn good to hold him close to your chest and breathe in his air, feel every tiny response of him against yourself because there's nothing separating his body from yours. It's freezing fucking cold outside, so you both jam your hands in your coat pockets as you leave, but you can walk close and puff white clouds of breath into each other's faces and smile loaded little smiles and oh god, oh shit, you gotta get all the way back to your apartment before you can really do any of the _good_ shit and that's gonna take for fucking ever at this time of night. Thank god your train is even running in the first place. 

Miracle of miracles, though, you make it, standing and swaying on the train in companionable silence, trying to ignore the piss smell and a nearby woman's incredibly loud headphones music, and by some measure of great restraint you don't even slam him to the inside of your apartment door as soon as you make it in. You both take a few minutes to slip out of your coats and shoes and gloves and shit like respectable adults, and then Brian spots Charlie and immediately starts antagonizing him because he's decided they're secretly bitter enemies - "You wanna throw hands, old man?" he says, putting both his hands up palm-out, ready to catch a punch. Charles, half-asleep on the top of the back of the armchair, doesn't even react. He never does. So Brian heads down the hall and leads you to your own goddamn bedroom.

Where you _do_ slam him down onto the bed.

"Whoa, fuck," he says, high and dreamy, but he doesn't sound mad about it at all; on the contrary, his arms are already tight around your back and his mouth finds yours for the kiss immediately, his right leg curling up just a little at the knee underneath you to slot his thigh between yours. Christ, he's half-hard already, and you're not much further behind, you've been feeling it since the train or even earlier and have been so thankful to have your longer winter coat to hide your fuckin' - indiscretions. His lips are so warm and wet against yours, smooth somehow even in the dry heat, and his hands clutch up and down your back as you sink into the kiss again, sink your body heavier on top of his against your shitty, unmade bed. You feel like - you're rocking, not just your hips in some kinda _fuckin'_ way but your whole body, rising and dipping to sync with his, the sweep and curl of your lips together, the breath in your lungs. You keep upright with one arm and brush the other hand through his hair, down his cheek, to hold him. God, you're touching him. God, you're gonna have sex with Brian David Gilbert. 

God, you're gonna have to admit to Allegra that she was right, and that is not quite, but _almost_, enough to ruin it. 

You kiss him harder, deeper, longer without coming up for air. You find a thing you can do with your tongue along his own tongue, up underneath it, that makes his breath catch in his throat on the tiniest most beautiful little sound. You _do_ start genuinely rocking your hips, your hardening cock finding purchase on the broad press of his thigh, and his hand slips up your back and into the hair at the base of your skull, curling and tightening, and now _you're_ making noises, fuck, fuck, so of course he does it again. You can feel him smile into the kiss as he files that one away for later. You try to brace yourself for how bad this kid is gonna be able to ruin you by the time the night is over. 

He peels away, touches your neck right where it turns into your jaw, both hands both sides. "What's," he pants. "What's on the table, here, what's the plan?"

You bite his chin, and say the first thing that pops into your mind, which is, "Would we - d'you think we need to use a condom if I go down on you, or-or can we go without?" 

"_Jeeesus_," Brian swears, gasping and hiking his hips up into yours _hard_ \- oh, that's the first real thrust of the evening, folks, and Brian is stiff and pounding in his tight grey jeans, grinding deliciously on your hipbone. "Wow. Wowww. Uh, no, I think - if that's something you wanted to, hooo, I think, you can just. Do it. My track record is very clean." 

"Cool," you say, in the understatement of the century. You kiss him some more, but now you're hoving up a little onto your knees, so you can take the weight off your arm and use both your hands to start tugging off Brian's sweater, and the t-shirt underneath it, all at once. He fumbles for the buttons on your flannel, too, thumbing across each new strip of skin that shows as it comes open, greedy and reverant all at once. Like he's daring someone to tell him not to touch you. It's so hot, so kind of like - _entitled_, almost, like of _course_ he's going to touch you - that it makes you a little dizzy. 

When you're both shirtless - and holy shit, shirtless Brian is rounding out 2019 a good stride away from where he started it, his solid core and his broad chest grown thick and sturdy and so, so fucking touchable under the breadth of your eager hands, you can't help yourself - okay, okay, you're both shirtless and you press one last kiss to his gasping, whimpering mouth before you start trailing your lips downward. As tempting as it is, you don't wander, because now that you've _said_ the words "go down on you" it's hard to really focus on anything else, and his trapped cock is just _so_ hard where it nudges against your chin, his hips twitching with the effort of not grinding his zipper right into your face. Maybe if you'd had more to drink you might try to do something stupid and fake-movie-sexy like open his fly with your teeth. You're very glad that you're not that stupid. 

You unzip his pants and the two of you work together to get them clumsily jerked down to about his knees. Underwear too. Then it's just his cock, rosy and dripping and perfect, and you don't even study on it very long or think too hard about it other than like _nice, foreskin_ before you suck it straight into your mouth. 

"Oh, _eff_," Brian squeaks, and his hands are back in your hair immediately, twisting and clenching and guiding you up and down against him already, "oh, god, sorry, I just - " You don't know how to tell him he doesn't need to apologize with your mouth full of dick, so you just dig the point of your tongue in around his swollen pink head and hope the message gets across.

Brian tastes so fucking amazing. You let the flavor of his sweat-tacky skin and the bloom of his precome coat every speck of the inside of your mouth, bobbing to the pace he sets with his stroking, clutching hands, happy to do this the way he wants it, with him, for him. You keep your hand curled around the base where your mouth doesn't quite reach, jacking him into your mouth, yes _please_ you want him to come - want to hear those high, crumbly noises he's choking out give way to something brighter and louder and all-because-of-you-er. You must catch something right with your twisting thumb, or your other hand groping along his pale fuzzy thigh, because he grunts _oh_ and his hands _fist_ in your hair, yanking you hard toward him until you gag, just the once, and that leaves _you_ groaning, god, fuck, each tug is a direct line to your own cock still throbbing in your pants. Yeah, okay, you steal down to unzip and get your dick out, and you do that thumb thing again. Those _sounds_.

"Patrick, fuck, _fuck_ I'm gonna come," he warns you, and you double down, tighten the O of your mouth around his thick sweet cock and _suck_, and now you can sync the jerking of your hand on your own dick to the sweet fluttery sounds he's making in rhythm, _oh, Pat, **oh!**_, and it's only a few moments more before he's coming down your throat, gushing hot and salt-bitter into your mouth, still swirling and hitching through the mess as you lose some of it, as he softens, until he's done, and he finally, finally unkinks his hands from your sweat-matted hair.

"Oh shit," he huffs out. "Okay. Thank you, for that, jesus _christ_." You sit up and make sure he's looking at you before you swallow, and he adds, "_fuuuck,_ for real? Who _are_ you. Have you always been this filthy - wait, don't answer that."

"I was about to say - you were there for all those Gill and Gilberts, too, I'm pretty sure."

"Yup, and I'm just as filthy, because now I'm gonna come kiss your jizz mouth while I jerk you off."

You both take a beat to fully shuck your pants, and then you crawl the rest of the way up till you're basically sitting in each other's laps and he makes good on that promise _immediately_. You come, moaning Brian's name into his mouth - giving him the whole business, _Brian David **fucking** Gilbert_ \- with your socks still on. He grabs for his soft blue v-neck tee and uses it to wipe his hand, wipe your cock, and his cock, half-assedly dabbing you both clean, and then he just puts his sweater back on right over his bare chest. 

"Hey, so, I don't care if you were gonna invite me to stay or not, because I would absolutely do it anyway even if you tried to kick me out, except for. I can't," he says. His voice _sounds_ as pitiful and whiny-mad as you _feel_, and you pout melodramatically. "I know, I know, but I have to leave so _god damned_ early in the morning to fly down to South Carolina, we have to check so many bags, we're bringing _Zuko_, it's gonna be a whole fucking ordeal." He kisses your forehead, and then your mouth, and you linger in the kiss with him for long, lush minutes, grabbing hard to his shoulders like that'll make him stay. "Mmph, fuck! No, Patrick, really, I gotta go."

"Yeah, no, shit, okay, it makes sense. You should - Have a great holiday, it's gonna be so good for you. To relax."

He knows a callback when he hears one, and he smiles, warm and mischief-sparkling, as he gets up and starts tugging the rest of his clothes back on. You scrounge up a pair of limp navy cotton pajama pants and sling them on for some vague sense of propriety. Enough that you can walk him to the door without flashing your roommate if he pops out of nowhere, anyway. God, he looks stupid-beautiful, one orgasm apiece later and glowing in the orange haze of the streetlamps beaming through your bedroom window. Fuck, next time you really gotta do this with the lights on.

Oh. Oh - your heart clenches down like a trash compactor on _next time_. You don't say shit, and you try not to let yourself even think it. Oh no. 

"Merry Christmas, Pat," he says to you, in your front entryway, as he's headed out. He doesn't kiss you again, just - _holds_ you, hugs you close with the wool of his winter coat scratchy at your bare chest, and you cling back, one hand cradling the back of his head into the crook of your neck and the other arm looped low and tight around his waist. 

"Merry X-mas, Brian," you whisper into his hair, and then he's out the door, into the frosty night, and he's gone.

You fall asleep in sheets that still fucking smell like him.

\------- 

Tomorrow is technically your last day of work before the break, but a lot of people who are traveling further have cut out; Brian and Jeff and Simone are all gone, and you and Clayton both take half-days, waving to each other when you pass him, on his way out as you're on your way in. You spend most of the afternoon genuinely trying but also genuinely failing to get anything done. You're - distracted.

Brian's - gone. For the holidays. Just like that, you won't be seeing him until the new year. Which gives you plenty of time for that twisting, screwing sensation to travel from your heart zone, where it was kind of awesome, to your gut zone, where it is just kind of anxious and miserable.

First thing's first, you don't bother him over the break. You know he's probably _crazy_ busy, know how important his family is to him, and the last thing you wanna do is give him something else to have to deal with on top of all of that. Besides, you've got your own holiday plans to fumble through, you still gotta wrap shit, make sure someone's feeding Charles, watch Die Hard a couple of times, try not to have an existential crisis about it literally being the year _Twenty-Twenty_. Normal stuff. Stuff that you'd definitely prefer to do _without_ the specter of hooking up with Brian lurking over you, but - 

Oh, fuck, there it is again: _You hooked up with Brian._

Brian, who's about to be back in the office on the second, just the same as you are.

The second, which is very suddenly _today_. 

God, you've been trying so hard to act like it wasn't a big deal, like coworkers hook up all the time and nothing ever comes of it. That last bit is true, you're pretty sure!! Brian isn't even the only coworker you've ever thought about hooking up with. It's just that now that you're only a half a train ride away from seeing him again for the first time since it happened, it's crashing over you like a tidal wave that the reason you haven't talked to him since then may be less _I didn't want to bother him over the holidays_ and more _I have no idea what the fuck I'm going to say to him._ And unless he's even later than you are to work this morning - which isn't unheard of, but still isn't exactly something you can bank on - you're gonna have to have a gameplan sooner rather than later.

When you step into the office, you're gonna - 

You're just gonna -

> TALK TO HIM ABOUT IT! --> SKIP AHEAD TO [CHAPTER 22](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21918814/chapters/52317388).  
CHILL OUT AND DON'T BRING IT UP AT WORK. --> SKIP AHEAD TO [CHAPTER 23](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21918814/chapters/52317442).


	4. Chapter 4

"Look," you tell Allegra, "why don't you just go, go back on in there, and I'm gonna pop back outside for a minute or two more, just gonna." Her eyebrow drifts up and her chin tips down, and her eyeball is in full force. "I'm telling you if you don't want to be where it's happening, just. Just leave me, in here."

"Wait - oh," she says, and then: "Oh! With, with Clayclay?"

You exhale. "Very, uh. Very possibly."

"You know what...okay," she says. Her smirk drifts a little fond, and she does actually start turning to leave. "Okay then, y'all." And she leaves the room, and then you remember you told Clayton you would check on whatever mess the children were making, whoops, and so you follow right behind her. 

"Wait, what the fuck?"

"Just a sec, just a sec," you reassure her.

Out in the living room, it looks like karaoke has been abandoned (you suspect there actually was a noise complaint) and now Brian, Laura, and a slightly-recovered Simone are in the beginning stages of attempting to construct a blanket fort, with Adam (wrapped in a blanket himself, wizard-style) doing something that could loosely be called "supervising." The suspicious noise was just a lamp tipping over, but it doesn't seem to have broken, so you don't think there's too too much you have to worry about. You turn Allegra over to that squad, happy to give her someone else to scrutinize and roast for a minute so you can slip back toward Clayton's room, and toward the fire escape, and toward Clayton.

Clayton, huh. 

Yeah..._yeah_, is the thing. 

You pop your head back out the window, but don't climb out all the way. "Coast is clear, my man," you tell him. "'Twas merely the floor lamp. No broken glass or anything so we seem to be in tip-top shape."

"Ah, splendid," he answers, catching your faux-lofty vibe and playing along. "Excellent, excellent, thank you for the report."

"Certainly." 

The joint is gone; you can see where his makeshift ashtray has been crumpled up into a ball, and you assume the remains of it are wedged inside. Clayton's shifted forward, a little, cross-legged on the narrow flat of the fire escape, and he looks like he's starting to feel the cold a little more, hunching into himself. But he doesn't move, doesn't really say much more, and so you just sort of...hang out, too, ignoring the frosty air and kind of hovering half-in, half-out of his window, sitting on the ledge with your top half outside and your legs dangling back down into his bedroom, so you're side-by-side but facing different directions. The silence hangs between you, but unlike - basically every other part of this party, both at the office and after, it's not a silence that feels awkward, that you feel like you need to break to keep things moving, saying something completely asinine just because the alternative is weirdness. This one isn't weird. You could stay quiet out here with him for as long as you wanted, you think. 

But also, maybe - maybe you _want_ to say something. Just because you can.

"Hey," you start, and it sounds dumb but you don't care, who the fuck cares, y'all are in your own little world out here. He turns to meet your eye, and his gaze is - intent, soft, his eyes a little - yeah, a little glassy, maybe, okay. "Uhmmm. You 'kay?"

"Oh, yeah, no, I'm solid," he says. "It wasn't much, it was just a little I had left over, and I didn't really drink anything at the office."

"Cool. Yeah, I've uh, I've had a couple but I'm feeling all right. Regular head." The December air is dry as hell, no chance of snow or anything, but it feels crisp and clarifying around you, keeping you on the sober side of the razor's-edge, never tipping over to stupid. 

"Cool."

There's NYC white noise echoing down below, and you can still hear the party going on back inside, but you can also like, hear Clayton's breathing, feel yourself syncing your own to it subconsciously after a moment or two. You realize, abrupt, but a little bit distant like it's happening to someone else, that now that you've stopped talking you're both just kind of sitting there staring at each other. His cheeks are bright pink above his beard, from the cold, and his mouth is hanging just a little bit open, just a little, tiny bit smiling. 

You start, "Hey so would it be okay if I kissed - " and in the exact same moment, he opens his mouth and says "Kinda wanna kiss you if that's - " and then you both cut off, the breath of your laughter coming out in bursts of steam-white. He raises his hand out of his own lap and rests it on the back side of your shoulder.

"Kiss me?" he tries again, just an airy whisper.

"Hell yeah," you say, and you smile, and lean in. You're kind of limited by the frame of the window, but he budges over the little bit he needs to to make it happen, and you tilt your head and breathe deep and press your lips to his, like you're in slow motion, the metal of the fire escape groaning and creaking as you shift around. His hand tightens against your back, cool and grounding, as he kisses into you, and you can feel his beard and his scarf against your neck, and you can just feel, just, every part of you that's touching, and it makes you want to - not stop kissing him, at all, like, ever. So after the soft little _smack_ of the first one separating, you nose in and kiss him again. And again.

All told, you're out there till you deadass start shivering. You don't get hot or handsy with it, it's SFW, you're outside where a stranger could see if they looked the right way, but it's long enough, deep enough, thorough enough that by the end you're already kind of learning the things he likes, his tongue in your mouth, the slow bobbing pace of you moving in toward him and then retreating, drawing him along, keeping him close. Only when you hear someone inside yelling "...ton! _Clayton_! Please come turn your TV on I don't know how to work your thingie!" do you sort of remember that oh, yeah, there's a party going on, and one of the people out here on some other cold kissing planet is technically its host. 

"You wanna go help Brian with your thingie?" you murmur into his neck, chuckling out more puffs of white.

"Guess I oughtta do that," he says. "So uh, get out the way, Patrick."

You get out the way. You swing back through into his room, the warmth of, like, doing the _smart_ thing and _not_ sitting outside with no coat on for fifteen full minutes the week before Christmas washing over you just uhhh remarkably restoratively, funny how that works, and Clayton worms back in behind you. He tosses the remains of his weedventure in the trashcan next to his desk, and as he crosses past you, he presses another kiss onto your mouth, just real quick, before sauntering out into the living room. And somehow that one, here _inside_ in the _real world_ and not out in your private icy oasis or whatever the fuck that was, feels - 

Feels, hooo, way more real. And leaves you eagerly anticipating the next, as soon as possible.

Clayton gets the TV turned on, and the Switch, and the rest of it, because apparently Brian and Laura's end goal here was getting a round or seven of Mario Kart up and running. You don't see Thomas or Allegra, but Simone seems back online, looking a little sleepier but a little more lucid simultaneously, and Jenna's there, and Adam's dipping in whenever Simone needs to check out, and you sit on the arm of the sofa with your thigh kind of parallel to Clayton's shoulder and take any joycons that anyone passes you whenever you're offered a turn, and switch to Wario and do decently but not well enough to beat Brian, ever, it turns out. You're maybe a little distracted, by the way Clayton's body presses into yours, and also by how little you give a shit about winning compared to either of the hyper-competitive Gilberts. Slowly but surely, everyone bows out, first of the game, and then, eventually, the party itself - Jenna finally having to take Simone home, Adam distributing cutesy air kisses and slipping away, Allegra hollering out at you from the kitchen that she and Thomas are hitting the road and they're taking the rest of Clayton's tequila, sorry, there's not that much left in the bottle anyway. Clayton laughs and shakes his head, but doesn't stop them. Everyone, with their own specific level of dramatic flair or lack thereof, leaves Clayton's apartment.

Everyone but you.

"Figured I could help you clean the place up," you offer, incredibly transparent even to your own still-not-quite-sober ears.

"Thanks," he says, generously not calling attention to it. "That's real sweet of you." 

You go through the motions of shifting his furniture back to true normal and not just the half-assed arrangement they tucked it back into post-fort. You scrounge up a bunch of empty bottles and cans into a bag and then take it down to his recycling for him, and as you're leaving he calls you a gentleman, and when you return he's changed into comfy clothes, pajamas or pajama-adjacent, a threadbare navy blue long-sleeved waffle henley and some baggy flannel drawstring pants that don't look like they were originally intended to match but do seem to like, go together, coordinated and soft. God, Clayton looks so _soft_. You are highkey overwhelmed by how bad you wanna sink on in there. 

And it's getting late, and you both still technically have work in the morning, so you just. Stop wasting time.

You hook your arm around his waist, there in the middle of his floor where his living room kind of fades out and turns into a hallway or something, and kiss his mouth again till you feel _stupid_ with it, fuck, all you want to do is make him - say something, do something, feel something. His floppy pajama shirt is insanely touchably soft, and you do all the new tricks you just learned, until he _sighs_, floaty and cool, and takes your waist, too, and leads you back to his bedroom, where it's brisk and strange-aired because y'all never closed the window. 

You can see where his nipples are peaked up through his shirt in the chill, and you touch over them, exploratory but assured, slow and gentle but pretty far from tentative or cautious. He takes your wrist in his own hand and holds your hand against him, presses you in harder, and so you touch harder. Fuck yeah. He leaves you there, takes both hands to start unbuttoning your shirt.

You do the whole thing just, like, wordlessly. It's like now that the party's gone you're back to where you were on the fire escape, untethered from reality as far as it extends beyond just the two of you, solid and hot-n-cold in his soft, messy bed. It's still so heavy on the kissing, even as you fall sideways and curl your bodies into one another, his hand skating up your ribs, nimble and precise, heavy but never clumsy, your mouth sliding to his neck or his ear or his clavicle but always back to his mouth, in the end. At least, until he nudge-shoves at your side and you flip over, and he spoons around behind you, his cock a thick warm swell against the crevice of your ass through your underwear.

"Patrick," he whispers in your ear, and compared to his soft cool skin his breath is warm and damp and fuck, intoxicating. You nod your head _yes, yes_, and he pulls down first your underwear, and then his own, his dick bumping and sliding up into the dip where your ass turns into your thighs. You clench tighter as he drives through, and it quicks up your spine, leaves you shuddering into his chest. He kisses at the hair-trigger-sensitive back of your neck and thrusts again, the slide growing smoother as he leaks across your skin, still a little tight and tacky but god it's _good_, the hot friction against the cold blankets, his soft quickening breath against you, his arm holding tight across your chest, your hand stealing down to stroke your own cock in time with his short little twists.

"Lube," he offers, "lube in the drawer if you can reach?" And you can reach, it turns out, your arms are long enough to snag open his nightstand and find the right thing, and god, it's _cold_ as he spreads it down along your trembling thighs but you want it, you want him so much, you're happy to take, just, whatever he wants to share, it's so sweet, it's so good, you can feel every breath he takes where his chest expands against your back and as his cock drives through the press of your thighs you can _feel_ it, if you reach down, twist your hand between your own legs to snag at the head of him on every push forward, getting a little slicked up yourself, so you can return to your own cock and jerk and twist and _finish_, god, a mess in Clayton's bed, with him not too far behind. Jesus, _whoa_. 

You clutch his arm tight to your chest with your own, keep yourself locked tight into him as you both come down. Your cheeks feel bright-on-fire with the hot flush of getting off, getting off with _him_, and his face feels warm, too, where it presses between your shoulderblades for just a minute, a half-kiss half-not, before he pulls apart and away.

"Okay," he says, soft and a little starstruck, staring up at the ceiling now.

"Okay," you agree. 

You think about asking to stay over, but only for a moment or so; it seems, like, weird, like the moment will sour if you try to make it last too long. He doesn't ask, either, but he does bring you a soft towel to clean yourself up with and even offers to loan you a fresh pair of underwear, although you do decline that one, too. Yours are fine anyway. He keeps his shirt off but slides his pants back on and sits quietly and watches you piece yourself back together, and smiles, especially when you finally close his window for him. God, it's _late_ by the time you take off, your head still reeling a little from being not-quite-drunk earlier (he makes you take a can of seltzer-water for the road, and it's a vile passionfruit flavor, but you'll live), and you already know for a fact you'll never make it into the office in the morning, but you absolutely would not trade any of this for anything.

You have just enough fortitude to make sure Charles has food in his bowl before you shut your lights right the fuck back off and flop out asleep. 

\-------

You're not _hungover_, per se, in the morning, but you are dehydrated as hell, and you're thanking Past Patrick for deciding he was only going to go in for half a day - the second half of the day now, _obviously_ \- on this the last day before the holiday break proper. You're hardly the only person cuttin' class - most people have honestly already left, you know Brian's not coming in, and you don't think Simone or Jeff is still around, either. You don't really know what Clayton's plans are, though, and so it catches you off-guard when you see him, halfway down the block ducking into an Uber, just as you're coming around the corner toward the Vox building. Heading out right when you're heading in. He's near enough that you could shout something out to him, although far enough away that you _would_ have to shout, and before you can make up your mind one way or the other, he - sees you, waves a little and then disappears, the car ducking back out into traffic and driving off. Well, shit.

You spend a couple hours just massively overhauling your insane email inbox overflow, a favor to Future Patrick who will absolutely not want to do this when he gets back from holiday vacation. You spend another hour or so working on some intentionally-badly-photoshopped graphics for a pitch Julia asked for some help on, and you spend the rest of the day, till your arbitrary quittin' time, making some script and article edits to some stuff that's gonna go up in January.

You spend the entirety of this time, as well as all night, and the first few days of your holiday break, wondering if you should have called out, to Clayton, before he left and you left and you didn't see each other again until 2020. 

And it's _stupid_, because you don't even know what the fuck you would have said if you had said something. Is there any way to bring up an impromptu post-party coworker hookup again in the light of day that isn't just _extraordinarily_ uncool? Has anyone in the history of boning down ever had that conversation in a way that didn't suck? The conversation that - 

The conversation that goes, Fuck, dude, that _ruled_, d'you maybe wanna do it again?

It's December 26th, and energy is flagging, in Maine and all across the Christmas-celebrating world, you figure. Most of the exciting shit is done and you're ready to just like, watch Die Hard and drink something warm and mildly alcoholic and not give a heck about anything. You fidget with your phone, your cursed millennial inability to stop holding it even when you're trying to chill, and you're still thinking about the Clayton thing, and it would be - supremely easy, honestly, to just text him about it. Probably way easier than saying something to him in person. And a good time for it, considering you doubt he's doing fuck-all on December 26th either.

You...could've texted him sooner, though, you think. You could've called out to him last Friday in front of the office, even. Fuck, if you're going down that path - _he_ could've called out to _you_. He saw you, and all he did was wave, and you haven't heard from him since then, either. You have no idea whose court this ding dang ball is in, at this point, or if there even is a ball at all. You just want your brain to turn off about it so you can eat leftovers and take big naps and stop giving a heck about anything, but the double-edged sword of this is that there's nothing significant enough happening to distract you from it, either.

So should you like. 

Text him??

> YEAH, YOU SHOULD'VE SAID SOMETHING. --> SKIP AHEAD TO [CHAPTER 34](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21918814/chapters/52317958).  
NAH, HE COULD'VE SAID SOMETHING. -> SKIP AHEAD TO [CHAPTER 35](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21918814/chapters/52318012).


	5. Chapter 5

It takes you the better part of (what's left of) the morning to work out what your move is, and when you finally do, it's astonishing how pathetic it is: a text message. To a person that's in the same building as you. Look, having the responsibility of taking initiative like this put onto your shoulders still doesn't exactly come naturally to you. But even just writing _hey, looking forward to seeing you again after the holidays :)_ goes a lot further for you than you were expecting, and you actually _do_ feel a lot better. And like, you _are_ really looking forward to seeing him again. Like, a lot. It's no fluke that you were thinking about that night a lot over the holiday - it's because it was _good_. You're defo ready to revisit the subject. 

You get his read-receipt on the text, but don't actually get an answer; but you're not sure what his schedule is this morning, the 2020 calendar's still a little wonky, and it's really not that big of a deal. 

At any rate, your head clears, and you manage to double back down on your work, finally finding the exact clips you needed to trim out of this gameplay footage and getting 'em to a more usable place. It means you have to tweak your script a little, but that's easy enough, and you're hopping windows and looping audio and suddenly, dang, it's almost one, and if you wanna take a lunch before your afternoon meetings you should probably do it now. You swing out of your chair and stand up into a biiig ol' stretch, arms over your head, and kinda shake your limbs out. You pat at your phone in your pocket and check it again, just real quick, but it's nothing more exciting than just some ugly emails stacking up. 

As you're sauntering into the break room, jonesin' for your microwave burrito bowl, there's - somebody coming _out_ of the break room, opening the door from the inside before you can open it from the outside, leaving you shuffling your feet a little to recalibrate, and oh, it's. It's Jeff. Huh, hey. He looks _cute_, huh - he's trimmed up his beard a little pretty recently, you can tell, and he's wearing a grey drawstringed hoodie that looks just like, super warm and cuddly. You feel your face crack into a broad, stupid smile just looking at him. He smiles a little bit, too.

"Oh, hey Patrick," he says. "Awful early for you to be eating lunch. What with it being like before 5pm and all."

"Ohh, well, y'know, somebody scheduled me a meeting during my regular lunch hour of two-thirty," you shoot back, "so my whole day's a little flip-flopped around." You add, "Welcome back. Good to see ya."

"You too."

"You gonna let me eat now?"

"Is it gonna stink up the whole place?"

"Define 'stink.'" Your grin goes cheesier.

"Ugh," he says, rolling his eyes, "just don't roll up to our meeting later with stank-nasty breath, okay? I literally will not be able to focus on anything else."

"No promises," you tell him. "Two-thirty then?"

"Two-thirty," he says. "Or maybe even a little earlier, not sure my thing with Tara is gonna take all that long."

"Cool," you say.

That absolutely sounds like the end of a conversation, he looks like he's about to move away, bounce back to his desk or wherever he was headed, so just, real quick: you lick your lips and tack on, "Oh hey, did you get my text message?" 

He makes a little face at you, mouth round, eyes drifting. "Oh! Yeah, my bad." He winks. "Good to see you." He smiles again, and dips out, and you slide through the door toward your lunch and oh, jesus, Petrana was in here the whole time and totally watched all of that, huh. Whoopsie. Your grin shifts from Jeff-amused to Petrana-apologetic, as you pass her on your way to the fridge, but she just gives you that awkward little head-nod of acknowledgement and buries herself back in her phone, and she has earbuds in, so you're probably good. You're good, right?

That wasn't weird, right?

You zone out into the rotation of the microwave a little - okay, like. _Should_ it have been weird? Maybe it should have. Maybe it should have been awkward as hell, carrying the weight of the last time you saw each other, Big Morning-After Energy but made even more totally bizarre by the way it's been delayed for two weeks. Tension, or something. But instead, there's just - normal coworker banter, that you'd like to think was flirty but it...literally could've been anything, hm. Maybe it _is_ weird. Maybe it's the fact that it wasn't weird that makes it weird in the first place.

"'Weird' doesn't sound like a word anymore," you mumble to yourself, around a mouthful of under-sauced rice. Petrana perks back up, gives you the universal eyeball-signal for _hey I didn't hear that you weren't talking to me were you?_, and you shake your head no to absolve her, and finish eating. 

Well, maybe you just gotta be more direct, Patrick. Lean harder into it, into the un-weirding of the whole thing, more than a text message, more than quippy break-room nonsense. You'll get him one-on-one in your meeting later, and that'll be just the in you need.

You hope.

Your thing with Jeff later is directly following a debrief he has with Tara about merchandizing stuff. (His retro gamer tee _really_ took off, saleswise - you're already on your second printing, and the team might start putting it on other items besides shirts, though you're not sure how that's gonna work with the visual gag - and he mentioned, before the break, maybe getting in touch with you for some illustrations to incorporate into future designs. Which is like, daunting, but also _so rad_, and honestly makes you feel kind of unsettlingly cool. That you might draw something, and someone might _pay money for it_. Insane.) It's just the two of you for now, you've just got a couple sketches along the lines of what you banged out for the Superfight episode of Overboard to show him before you take it to any kind of _team_; and well, it won't exactly be an elegant segue, but much like the text from this morning, you're sure you'll feel better about it once you just do it and get it over with.

"Ooooh, wait!" he says suddenly. "What about - ch'boy? Burger Chainz! Dude people _love_ that video." 

"Dude, me too," you groan. "Jenna said she was supposed to get a yea-or-nay on more eps by the new year but as far as I know the jury's still fuckin' out. _Damn_ I wanna play more of that shit." 

"No kidding. Y'all still need to find a way to work my slutty pop-sensation camboy character into the campaign." He winks and giggles, and you feel your smile coming on in kind. Is this it? This feels like it.

"Oh - hey. So. Uh. Speaking of slutty." That was not it. Fuck. You run your fingers through your hair almost immediately, on autopilot - sally forth, you idiot. Looking at his cute-ass face helps a lot. "That's not - look. I just wanted to say. It's been uh, really, really cool and nice to see you again after what happened at Clayton's place. I was just thinking, wondering if - " 

Jeff's expression sours, just a little, just _enough_ \- "Yeah, okay, look, can we _not_?"

Your hand shifts, clenches then unclenches on the surface of the table, and something cool and extraordinarily unpleasant settles itself all up into your bones. Your lunch, suddenly, feels like a brick in your stomach; your phone, suddenly, feels like a brick in your pocket, and you _knew_, when he said what he said when you asked him about your text - remembered, so sharp-clear, that moment in Clayton's bathroom when he said _we're both terrible liars._

You say, your voice an embarrassing choked little thing, "What?"

"Eff, there's probably a way I could have said that better."

"To be fair I just said 'speaking of slutty.'"

"Yes. Thank you for that." He scooches his chair back a little from the table you've been leaning over together, and you can see him shifting a tiny bit, too, uneasy like you are, and that at least is a little reassuring. A _little_. "Patrick. Jerking off with you was like, way fun and extremely good, but that was _party_ energy. Fun coworker hookup at the Christmas party yeah! It's not the kind of shit I want to be doing all up in the actual office? Okay?"

"Uh, okay, I just thought - "

"Like I dunno you're just. You've been really kind of pushy about it today and bringing this - weird vibes? Messy, like, inorganic vibes?" He's wringing his hands, he's _fidgety_, you feel - a little bad for him, but like. Also, ouch. "I dunno. I'm not feeling it. The texting, and like, in front of Petrana, or whatever - "

"She had her headphones in," you counter, but your voice sounds small and weak. 

"Ugh, look, I'm sorry. I'm trying so hard not to be a douche here. Pat, I _liked_ it! It was super hot. I just really, really don't want to talk about it at work, especially not our first day back. I don't want it to become like a _thing_ that turns into some weird shit when it goes off in some weird direction in the future, where it's this big office drama. Dwight is the only good part of that show. You won't hate me forever if I just say like - back off, please?"

You study on Jeff's face. He does look like, really genuinely apologetic and sincere, and you figure that's saying something coming from the king of looking-shady-even-when-he's-not. You knew it was kind of weird, and getting to the root of the weirdness is probably better than like, _not_ doing that. You can read in his eyes that he's feeling the same, about speaking his bit into the situation, clearing the air. And _fuck_ you feel bad about reading this wrong, because - god, you're still staring at his face, he's _so cute_ \- because you really like Jeff. And you're still thinking about hooking up with him at the party, because it was really, really fucking good. You want to be responsive to what he needs, especially because he _did_ say - 

In the _future_ \- 

Okay. You take a deep breath - cool. You're handling it, it's handled. Un-weirded if it's the last thing you do. If Jeff wants you to back off, of _course_ you'll back off.

(Won't you?)

> ABSOLUTELY! BE GOOD. --> PROCEED TO [CHAPTER 7](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21918814/chapters/52316476).  
MAYBE NOT QUITE. BE BAD. --> PROCEED TO [CHAPTER 8](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21918814/chapters/52316518).


	6. Chapter 6

Okay. Okay, you know what, actually, no. You are not gonna let this shit get you all psyched out. Like, if you think about it - both you and Jeff have had all day to say something about it, and neither you nor Jeff _have_, and so what that probably means is that the best thing to do is just. To not. You take a deep breath. Okay. 

You've got meetings all afternoon, and one of them is with Jeff, to talk about - yo this is actually super rad, but it's to talk about putting your artwork and his artwork on merch shit. The ass-eating retro gamer tees really took off, you're already on your second printing, and y'all might need to start making more moves in that direction sooner rather than later if you want to prove to Tara 'n' the gang that it's a ball that deserves to keep rolling. Plus, the idea of _your_ artwork on a thing that people might _pay money for_ is highkey terrifying but in the coolest fucking way. So. Meeting with Jeff, meeting with Clayton right after that for a shooting brief, maybe should run through the January Unraveled script that Brian sent you to proof, and then you're pretty much done for the day. No biggie. With your day broken down into chunks like that, it's easier to get back on your bullshit, by which you mean your responsible employed adult workflow. You swing by the breakroom for an energy drink and a lil bag of Chex Mix, and when you get back to your screen it's suddenly way easier to focus on the video. 

Two-thirty rolls around, and you find yourself a good stopping point in your video tweaking and then saunter down to the hi-top tables in the breakout space, where Jeff is already waiting, tablet and stylus and Starbucks and a big totally-normal-not-weird smile. Cool. "Eyyo," you call out from a few steps away still, crossing over and sitting down, folding your legs awkwardly up under the countertop. "How uh, how was your break, good to see ya."

"Good, it was good! Really good to see my brother. How 'bout you?"

"Really good to see the inside of my eyelids," you quip back. "Nah, nah, it was great. I just _did_ really need to sleep a lot."

"R-I-P Patrick. No rest for the wicked."

"I'll have you know I was actually very good this year." You preen a little, sitting up real straight, stretching your neck out.

"Oh yeah? What did Santa Claus bring you?" 

"Jeffrey..." you say, very solemnly, dropping sotto voce, "Santa isn't real."

"_What_?" he gasps, scandalized. "Pat! What are you saying to me! This is - oh god, my whole world is collapsing - " He put his head in his hands, and you laugh, and he laughs, and the bit runs its course. 

"No but seriously, I'm a grown-ass man and I bought myself some video equipment and a little igloo for my cat to go inside."

"Grown ass-man," he fires back. He cocks an eyebrow - well, both eyebrows, really, he's not especially good at that one - down toward where you're seated in the tall stool. You do an amiable little wiggle for him and dig your tongue into the corner of your smile. He shakes his head, but he's smirking, too, and it seems to take him a second or two to pop back to the task at hand. 

"Right, so let's talk Superfight mummies," he says. 

"Ho, shit, yeah, I got a bunch of dudes here." 

The two of you hunch together over the table, over the one tablet, pointing and swiping and caffeinating. His shoulder is fully flush with yours for at least half the time, and you...don't hate it, the way you can feel the warmth radiating off him, through him, into you, tingling through the nerves in your arm. Like, on purpose, right? It'd be so easy for one or both of you to move your elbows away and just _not_, but you stay pressed together, talking in low voices with small smiles the whole time. He even brings up Burger Chainz, and you sigh melodramatically and hit him with a couple lines in the voice, about how _welp y'see Jenna was surposed ta be gettin' the word down from H-Q about when you might be able ta get back in the swing a things, there, but so far yer all comin' up empty, might be another coupl'a months if anything happens at all._ He's almost as disappointed as you are. But he very kindly insists that the kids on the internet _loved_ that shit and you should think about it anyway. 

"Maybe like a real sexy version," he says, grinning. "Cyberpunk pinup."

"Oh, jesus," you groan. "No way. I'm not feeding into those horny fucks."

"I dunno, Burger Chainz is pretty hot. Big beefy boy."

You pull an affronted face, a lofty voice. "Jeff, that is my _son_."

"Okay, daddy." 

You've got nothing to say to that one, just laugh, you're _dying_, and sink your head into your hands, resting on your elbows, resting on the table, where your shoulders are no longer pressed together and you feel the absence of him, a coolness. He just stays grinning, and flips the cover on his tablet closed. 

"You've got more stuff today, right? Don't let me make you late."

"I don't think it's gonna be that serious, but thanks," you say. There's a beat that hangs, neither of you officially saying _bye_ or whatever, and you think - shit, is now the time, maybe? Where you're supposed to say something about the party?

Fuck, though, he looks so normal. And this _felt_ so normal, and saying anything is just gonna immediately pivot it to fucking weird. You just say, "Uh. Thanks," again, and hope that it conveys everything you're trying to get at. 

"Yeah. Thanks," he agrees, and oh, thank god, it sounds exactly the same. "Okay, later."

"See ya 'round," you say, Burger Chainzing it a little, and then you head down to the meeting room where you're supposed to touch base with Clayton. 

Okay, cool. So that's it then. You made it through the first awkward post-hookup hurdle and no shit? everything seems _great_. It's beyond relief to know that he isn't feeling weird about it, regretful or workplace-awkward or shitty, and that he doesn't seem to be needing anything from you about it, either. Check. Done and done.

Except... it did kind of feel like he went _slightly_ out of his way to make a couple of. Well. Hornier jokes. He said something about your ass, he _reached_ to call you daddy. And hhghghh, if you were thinking about it just like, a _lot_ over the break, maybe _he_ was thinking about it a lot over the break, and maybe whatever capital-h Happened here hasn't really like, finished. Maybe it's just on hiatus, ramping itself back up to whatever its next move is gonna be. 

You think you could actually really get on board with that.

You force yourself not to get distracted by it during your meeting with Clayton, or for the rest of your workday, even if you do occasionally catch yourself pressing your left hand to your right shoulder, touching subconsciously at the spot where his warmth seeped through. 

For a couple weeks it stays like that, more of same - normal, but like, normal _plus_. Nothing weird or awkward but still just like, a tension, a very palpable _hey! we hooked up! that's a Thing That Happened!_ energy that you seriously hope nobody else can feel radiating off the two of you, because that _would_ be insanely awkward, even if everyone already Knows™. He knocks his hip into yours in the break room when he definitely doesn't have to; you reach straight over his head to adjust a light, and you could have asked him to please move out of the way, but you don't, and it's very Westley from Princess Bride, grabbing for Buttercup's pitcher. He doesn't text you about it, either, not explicitly, but he does send you messages just a fraction more frequently than he used to, and you always respond as promptly as you can. It's a fun, tasty little wave to ride; and it only seems natural, then, that when you're getting some Unraveled reshoots in way too late on a Thursday evening, some of the last people left in the building, only to discover that Jeff's been fighting through a snafu with the online store and has been stuck there late too, that you invite Jeff to tag along when Brian pitches the three of you go out for drinks. 

You, Jeff, Brian and Clayton crowd around a tall tiny table with no chairs in a bar that frankly you kind of hate but that does have some _choice_ happy hour deals. Brian orders, like, a _beer_, just some regular ass shit in a bottle, which you have _never_ seen him do, and you all immediately dogpile on him for turning into an old white man. "First the mustache and now this," says Clayton mournfully, shaking his head and sipping at his own drink, which is something fruity and very respectable. If you're gonna pay for bar-priced alcohol in this part of town, at least get something wild that fucking tastes good and make it worth it. You could drink whatever Brian's drinking at your _house_.

"Listen, sometimes you just have a long day and you just wanna crack open a cold one with the boys," Brian sasses. "And you, my _boys_, have betrayed me in this way." 

You clink your big, ugly drink into Jeff's and blow Brian off. "Sucks to suck, dude." 

You don't have a lot to drink - especially since, fuck, you're realizing you haven't really had a lot to eat today, huh. You know exactly how tipsy you are, which is "yes, but not very, and I am fully self-aware," which is honestly the only good kind of tipsy to be when you're in public and not drinking privately at someone's house. You are just, just tipsy enough to decide it's a great idea to nudge your hand into Jeff's on the surface of the table, and when he moves his, to nudge over further and do it again.

"What's going on down there, Pat," Jeff muses. The bar is noisy, and Brian and Clayton are deep in their own conversation, heads bent low over something on Clayton's phone, and they don't seem to have noticed at all.

"You tell me," you say, cocking one eyebrow at him. You _are_ good at that one.

"Are we only ever gonna take this anywhere when we've been drinking?" he jokes.

"I mean, we _could_ have taken it somewhere last Tuesday when you made a point of telling me my ass looked good in jeans that I wear literally three times a week." 

"Okay, well, I just felt like no one else was telling you, and I felt like it was important that you know!" 

"I do know," you say, low and amused. "That's why I fucking wear them."

You grab his hand, from the tabletop, and slide it around to rest on your ass. He follows suit with the other hand of his own accord, and you reach over and take a sip of his drink, which is dark and classy and adult, and tastes like absolute shit.

"Damn, bitch, you live like this?" 

"Shut the fuck up."

Jeff rocks up and kisses you, and of course that's the exact moment that Brian and Clayton stop doing what they're doing and start looking directly at you.

"Ohhh-kay, okay, I see how it is," says Brian. "This ol' chestnut." 

"We turn away for one second, Brian, and this, this brazen display of - "

"Of whatever the fuck this is - "

You flip Brian off, and he and Clayton laugh, and so does Jeff when he notices it, breaking the kiss and resting his face against your chest. You stay that way for a beat or two, and then he _squeeze-squeezes_ at your ass and you peel respectfully apart.

But a round and a half later, when Clayton gets a phone call he has to step outside to take and Brian decides he's gonna chance the line for the men's room, your hands and mouths are back on each other basically as soon as they're out of sight.

You kiss deep, deep into Jeff's mouth, rolling your tongue against his, sucking on his upper lip. Fuck, it's like as soon as you remembered you'd done this, and were totally allowed to do it again if you wanted, your whole body went _fuck yeah_ and needed to do it again as soon as possible. You're fucking _swaying_ with it, leaning into where Jeff is cupping both hands around your jaw and you've got your arms wrapped tight and then tighter around his waist, clinging his body close. You lean into the wall behind your table, let him press you into it, nudging his knee up between yours as you fucking make out like college students in a bar, harder, handsier. The stone wall flat at your back is grounding. It gives you the support you need, to sink down lower, even your height out with his a little, kiss him lush and wet and dig your fingers into the back of his neck. God, shit, you thought you were just remembering wrong, that there was no way Jeff could be such a goddamned good kisser, but he _is_. You whine a little into his mouth, cock your hips open just a little more for him to press in close. You dare to admit - you _missed_ this, maybe. Just a little.

You're not hard, but you _could_ be. If you wanted. If that's where this is going tonight. If it's not just a Thing That Happened, but a Thing That's Happening. Again. Still. Soon. 

Jeff twists his mouth off of yours and presses his face into the crook of your neck. "Hey," he says, "so, we're two grown men making out like teenagers, in public."

"Yeah," you agree.

"Should we maybe like, stop? At least before Brian and Clayton get back?"

> GOOD POINT. MAYBE Y'ALL SHOULD COOL OFF. --> PROCEED TO [CHAPTER 14](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21918814/chapters/52316848).  
OR YOU COULD JUST MOVE THE PARTY ELSEWHERE. ;) --> PROCEED TO [CHAPTER 15](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21918814/chapters/52316920).


	7. Chapter 7

With your eyes still locked firmly, intentionally on Jeff's, you take a deep and steadying breath. You don't want him to mistake any of this, you want to be - candid as shit, okay, and it's a mildly intimidating amount of emotional vulnerability but you wanna get this _right_.

"Th...thank you, for telling me that," you tell him. You vaguely register that your head is nodding, maybe subconsciously trying to be _affirming_, or something. "I really like, appreciate and respect, how you, how honest you're being right now, that you'd assert your boundaries or whatever."

"Woke bae Patrick Gill." 

You snort. "Ohh my god, don't you fuckin' - _Look_," you insist. "The last thing on this earth that I would want to do in this scenario is make you uncomfortable or make shit bad for you. I one hundo percent absolutely will back off. I will give you whatever space you need."

"For real, that's incredibly sweet and I appreciate it," Jeff says. "But also, can we _please_ stop talking about our _feelings_ because it's making my skin go all crawly and weird."

"Yes! God, absolutely, yes." You nod on purpose this time, very emphatically. "Let's go back to talking about these weird mummies."

"Ohmygod yes! The monsterfuckers are all up _in_ my Twitter mentions!"

You talk about some weird mummies some more, and it transitions to zombies, to vampires, to your Halloween costume Overboard look, to Overboard in general, and then you're just shooting the shit and oh dang then it's time for your other afternoon meeting, which is a filming debrief with Clayton where you will probably have to apologize again for permanently contaminating one of his guest washcloths. You stay locked in, active-listening style, on Jeff's face and his eyes, glinting with mischief and squinting sweet with laughter behind his glasses, the entire time. He looks - comfortable, really satisfied with your answer, and that _rules_, to have put him at ease again. He also looks really, really fucking cute. God, you're thinking about it again, or like, _still_, more like it. You're thinking about how great it'd be for it to happen again - but how you're fully committed to not pushing him, at all, and letting it happen on _his_ terms or not at all. You meant what you said - you would _never_ do anything to make him feel uncomfortable. He's your professional coworker and also your friend. And also, like, a fucking _human being._

It's tempting to push, next week, when Jenna comes to you with a defeated shrug and a grumpy little sneer and says that more Cyberpunk episodes are currently a _soft no_, and that you'll revisit in March. The burger-shaped hole in your creative dreamscape clenches up a little, and it stings, _but_ it does mean that y'all can officially start rolling on the first post-hiatus Overboard. Clayton sits you directly across from Jeff, which makes it just _incredibly_ easy to watch him the whole time, and also incredibly easy for him to throw no fewer than six glass marbles directly at your head when he loses just, like, _spectacularly_ badly at Potion Explosion. Thankfully, his aim is also spectacularly bad, so none of them hit. Clayton deducts fifty points from Slytherin, and Simone and Karen just try to stay out of the line of fire. 

"I'm a Hufflepuff!" Jeff insists, giving his best sweet-baby-boy grin.

"Like fuck you are!" says Simone. "Devious little shit. Snake recognize snake."

"I'm not a snake, I'm just a snack!" 

Jeff winks at you, and this is so getting cut from the video now, and - it would be so easy. But he doesn't take it further, so neither do you. 

It's tempting to push, next month, when Brian needs warm-body volunteers for his Valentine's Day "romanceable NPCs"-themed Unraveled special, and Simone yells a big hearty _NOPE!_ out across the whole office and ollies outie before the shoot even starts. He's really hoping for at least five people, but it makes his algorithm work better if there are six, and he already wheedled _Tara_ into it somehow so scoring Jeff turns out to be pretty easy, actually, and you and Brian guide everyone else (and yourselves) through the cheesy rom-com scripts he and Karen put together and of course you and Jeff end up opposite each other. He's potentially the worst actor out of the six of you, can't keep a straight face through the more sentimental lines to save his life, and Brian's gonna have his work cut out for him editing around it - but it's just so _nice_, to watch Jeff say these sweet and flirty dialogue options to you, smiling and batting his eyes. He's also dressed up a little for the V-day theme and he looks _sharp_ in his suit jacket, broad chest and crisp lines, and the frames on his brand-new glasses are _really_ doing it for his face. But the flirting doesn't really continue once the camera stops rolling, beyond the regular "maybe one tick flirtier than is responsible between coworkers" energy that the entire office is usually bringing, and so you take your _iconic_, not _tired, Brian_, red flannel and go home. Alone.

You crank the sensitivity on your proverbial _vibe-check_ feelers all the way up to eleven. You wait, and hope, and read too much into too many details, but Jeff was abundantly clear about how he felt about the situation at the time and now, _now_, you wouldn't even know how to proceed if you wanted to. Instead your brain starts drumming up little arbitrary reasons why it was probably a bad idea anyway. Jeff's allergic to cats, for one. And also you _got off together_ in _Clayton's bathroom_ at a _staff party_, which is just an insanely weird energy to start a relationship with a coworker with. Even if it wasn't ever going to progress beyond more-of-same. (Even if you wanted it to.) 

"_Patrice!_" he trills, striding over to the desk where you're working. "Sales squad got back to me about the last round of merch stuff and we are _rolling_ in it! Do you wanna come review some of this shit with me?"

You tug your headphones loose, from one-eared to no-eared. "Ohh dunk, is this like, even with the switch we made to the like more ethically whatever'd T-shirt stuff?" 

"Yes!! Zombie-Gon design is off the charts babeyyy." 

You follow behind him, as he steers you to another monitor, bigger and better to view the stats on than the tablet in his hands, which you are nevertheless still trying to read over his shoulder.

You don't stare at his ass as you follow him. You _don't_, okay. And you _definitely_ don't feel your heart twist up, just a little, a jolt up through your whole self like your leg does when you miss a stair, when you realize in that moment -

\- that the _Moment_, the one with a capital M, has passed.

> **TOUGH LUCK!!** Your adventure with JEFF has come to an end. How would you like to proceed?
> 
> START A NEW GAME! --> RETURN TO [CHAPTER 1](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21918814/chapters/52316155).  
MAYBE YOU SHOULD SEE IF BRIAN IS STILL AVAILABLE. --> PROCEED TO [CHAPTER 18](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21918814/chapters/52317127).  
MAYBE YOU SHOULD SEE IF CLAYTON IS STILL AVAILABLE. --> PROCEED TO [CHAPTER 19](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21918814/chapters/52317172).


	8. Chapter 8

You're not - entirely sure, how long you've been staring at Jeff's face, while he looks in turns fretful and coy and dismissive and apologetic and somehow, some combination of all four, but you feel time expand and contract weirdly and then _snap!_ back to reality like a rubber band, combined with a sort of lightbulb moment, and you don't care that you're mixing metaphors because like, you _get_ it. Everything he's said so far honestly makes just like, a _ton_ of sense, even if it took him a second or two to get there with it; you see it there, the page he's been on, and the page you've been on, and where it was you misstepped. At least, you _think_ you're reading this right. And so you slide your chair back, a little, mirroring what he's kind of already done, and fall in stride.

"No, yeah, totally," you say, walking yourself to as casual and comfortable a place as possible (even as you are: fretful, coy, dismissive, apologetic). "Uh, yikes, haha. Didn't realize I was coming on so strong. That's my bad." You shift your gaze from his face, finally, looking a little askance, licking and chewing at your bottom lip a little. "I just. I guess I was kind of wondering if you thought we might hook up, again? It was super good the first time and would probably only be better if there was like, a bed?" You're still not looking at him, but the corner of your mouth quirks up a little, just imagining it. 

Jeff laughs, and it still sounds so excellently genuine, and you take that as a good sign. "Maaaaybe," he says. "If you play your nasty cards right, Patrick. But like, please, dear sweet baby _jesus_, only if we don't ever have to have some big crazy talk about our _feeeelings_, or I am gonna straight-up vomit."

"Oh, god, no, _please_," you agree emphatically. "Let's go back to talking about these weird mummies."

"Ohmygod, for _real_ though. My Twitter mentions for the merch account are just a hundred percent monsterfuckers." 

You hash out a couple more half-assed concepts with him, tooling around on your tablets and swapping stuff around. He does this cool thing on his where he just like, instantly tiles a design into an all-over print, and you get him to show you how to do that, too, and you spend a very lovely straight five minutes just watching his hands, watching him be good at stuff. The flirty, approving grin he gives you when you nail how to do it and immediately use your new powers for evil and put blobby little dicks all over his screen ("Okay, okay, shit, we gotta stop fucking around, I have more meetings this afternoon!") is even better. 

Look - you respect everything he said earlier, and you _are_ gonna back off, let him instigate when the timing's better for him. But now that the holiday break's over, you're gonna see him almost _every day_, and it would be even weirder to act like it never happened in the first place. He's hot, you're on board, and you can't just turn shit like that off like a lightswitch. It's more like - a faucet, or something, and you're doing your best to cut back down to just a little trickle.

These similes and shit are really getting away from you, huh. 

You breeze through the rest of your workday fairly uneventfully, your filming brief with Clayton, a few more tweaks to your script from earlier. Sometimes, depending on where your workflow takes you in the space, you can catch Jeff out of the corner of your eye, doing his own thing, or more often than not, especially after four p.m. or so, just dicking around on his phone. He's not ever looking at you, when you look at him, you don't like, dramatically meet his eye across the expanse of the office, but it's nice to just, y'know. Be able to look. 

He cuts out of work earlier than you do, same as most people, and so you're not entirely sure where he's at when you text him, on your brisk January walk between the Vox building and your subway stop of choice. 

_>can't fucking believe you said dwight is the best part of that show. there is no best part of that show. it's terrible._

All you know is, he answers you _remarkably_ quickly.

_>Omg no I obviously only like it ironically.  
>'Ironically' is the only way people who arent white ever like that show._

That gets a full, barking laugh out of you on the train platform, and even as your train speeds off and you lose service underground, you're still smiling. You spend the whole ride to your stop thinking about it, about what mindblowingly clever and cool thing you're going to say back, to keep him laughing, wherever he is, even if you can't see him. Unfortunately the best you've got is a vague emoji rendering of _bears, beets, battlestar galactica_, only there absolutely is not a beet emoji. 

_>Patrick what is this eggplant???_

_>there's no beet, so...?_

_>You cant fool me. _

_>:smirk:_

He doesn't respond to that, and you're nearly home, so you don't force it, let the conversation drop. As fun as it is needling at him, you _do_ wanna back off and give him his space like he asked. It's only fun when the stakes are low as hell and nobody's wigging out. You like him too much - not even as a _guy you like_, but just as like, a human being who is good - not to respect him like that.

And you never, _ever_ bother him at work, in any format; it was hugely obvious that that was one of the biggest problems he was having. But next week, you're in the office on a day he's working from home, and you can't help yourself.

_>ok, how should i slip 'daddy' into the unraveled shoot THIS month  
>i do it every time now just to fuck with him and he always edits it out but it gets him so angry, he haaates it, it's so good_

_This time, too, he answers almost immediately:  
>Whats this one about? Time travel right?_

_>yeah that's a big portion of it_

_>Something about being your OWN daddy now.  
>Or also like. He could be your daddy now because now hes older than you.  
>Something something old man! _

_>perfect. lots of good options. thank you for your service sir_

_>Any time, daddy ;) ;)_

Oooof he's joking, but you hiss out a long, low exhale through tight barely-opened lips when you allow yourself to reread that last one a couple times out of context. You can _hear_ it in Jeff's fake cutesy voice, and it quicks just a little bit into your gut, his little naughty cherub smile and the absolute unflinching confidence in his solid, compact body. You don't respond, just set your phone down face-down and dive back into your work to school yourself away from that train of thought. Everything's working so well right now, with you intentionally matching his ultra-casual, spicy energy, following his lead until you put out the same vibes - it leaves you, like. Vibin'!

(--Fucking christ, that's such an ironic-Jeff thing to say, that you've caught yourself thinking here, _We vibin'!_ He rubs off on you, a little; you're mildly embarrassed to admit that Clayton actually caught it before you did, called you out on _haha, you sounded so much like Jeff there for a minute!_ with a knowing smile as you guys broke down a talking-head shoot a couple days ago. Whoops.) 

But god, as nice as vibin' is, you do hit little flickers and flashes every once in a while of wanting him to please, dear god, Jeffrey, throw you a _bone_ here. Pun intended. Eggplant emoji. 

It's just enough that the first time _he_ initiates, one night just after you've wrapped your Twitch stream, you're grinning with your whole face from the moment you catch his name on your screen.

_>You think this is too horny for Overboard? [Attached Image]_

"Shiiit, okay," you whistle out loud, because god he kicked off with a _doozy_ didn't he. This month you guys are playing Potion Explosion, and Jeff's really leaned into the bargain-bin Hogwarts energy with this joke-ass outfit he just sent you, a mirror selfie of him in a wizard robe that opens in a deep, deep V down his otherwise bare chest, a Gryffindor scarf thrown around his neck and shoulders. His eyes look nearly closed from the way he's glancing down at his phone, but you can see where he's sticking his tongue out, a glib _tee hee jokes for Patrick_ little move that there's no _way_ isn't meant to also be a little slutty, that wet pink peek. You take just, like, a hugely questionably long time to answer him, partly because you can't stop _staring_ at the broad dark-haired slope of him exposed by the stupid robe and partly because you don't really know how to answer without showing your whole ass. 

You guys haven't - downright _sexted_ yet, but you've edged toward horny, sure. But you've never edged _this_ close.

_>Ho damn, yer a wizard jeffrey  
>i'd say that's not workplace appropriate but we both work at polygon fucking dot com so that holds literally zero water  
>i will say if you roll up looking like this much of a snacc you better be prepared to lose gracefully because brian 100% will make moves to escalate the situation_

_>Omg I'd like to see 2019's Mustache Poster Boy even try to step.  
>And also awww, I am a snacc, thank you Patrick._

_>don't be coy you know you're hot as shit_

_>:baby: :baby: :baby:_

He wears a shirt patterned with tiny stars under the robe for the actual Overboard shoot; Simone wins, though, both the unspoken competition for "best wizard aesthetic Look" and also the literal game of Potion Explosion. You just do your best to look as little like Crystal Thymothy of yore as possible, and also to stare at Jeff across the table as little as possible, to fantasize about mouthing down the open front of the robe all the way to his bellybutton and then some, like, on your _knees_, as little as possible, because you're uh. A little nervous that that's gonna come through on camera, maybe. (It maybe does; the final edit of the video has a _lot_ more of Simone and Karen than it does of either you _or_ Jeff.)

And then suddenly it's nearly February. It's been just about a month since That Fateful Night, tee-em, at Clayton's house at the afterparty with some bad margarita-adjacent drink sticking your shirt to your ribs and Jeff's hungry mouth biting a mark into your collarbone. A month since he told you to cool your jets and you...mostly listened, a month worth of sweet and spicy texts that you have to admit, you go back and read over from-beginning-to-now more often than is probably normal. You're vibin' with Jeff, still. Picking up what he's putting down, letting him set the pace. Real casual-like. But much like when you first started texting, you're worried that if you leave the ball in his court indefinitely, he's never gonna volley it back. 

Meanwhile - if Shigeru Miyamoto is to be believed - _you_ are pretty good at tennis.

You catch him working on his tablet, lounging in a breakout-space comfy chair. He looks half-bored, half-frustrated, a cute little frown furrowing his brow as he flicks his stylus in what even from here looks like - doing, undoing, redoing, undoing again, fruitlessly. You wait a few moments to make sure the coast is clear and no one else is gonna intrude on any heart-to-hearts you may need to have, and then hove slowly, forced-casually, into his space. It's telling about how wack whatever he's working on must be that it takes him a beat or two to notice your shadow looming over him.

"Oh! Hello Pat," he says, his frown evaporating slightly as you sort of half-sit on the arm of his chair. You give him a smile back. It feels real good.

"Heyo," you say. "You good?"

"Honestly? Today just needs to be over already. I slept like shit because I could hear my neighbors fucking through the wall all night and I just wanna go home and take a bubble bath and then _sleep_."

"Ooh, bubble bath. Treat yo self." 

"Dude it smells like coconut but also like, in a very manly way? It's my new favorite thing, I'm in love with it." 

"Well, I fully endorse cutting out early if you wanna, but I understand if you have shit you need to get done. But yeesh." You rest your hand gently on his hand, sympathetic but also like. Well. Also. You visibly clock his trepidation, but it's gone just as quickly as it appears, and it's a little stupid how good that feels. _Waluigi comin' in with the Zone Shot._

You clear your throat for a second. "So uh. Not free tonight I guess, sounds like you got a hot date with a big ol' tub. Could you maybe spare some time later this week? Like... Thursday maybe?"

Jeff raises one eyebrow at you over his glasses (or, well, tries to - mostly it's two eyebrows. He's not especially good at that one and it's incredibly endearing.) "It's an Overrealmed recording night, so I'm busy from six-thirty till like ten or ten-thirty... might I ask _whyyy_?" His face goes devious-delightful-coy as his voice swings up, and he shifts his hand underneath yours, but doesn't remove it, just lets your skin brush together a little bit more deliberately. Ooh. _Ooooh._ We _vibin'_.

Serve's up.

What _do_ you want to do on Thursday, anyway??

> GO OUT WITH HIM! --> PROCEED TO [CHAPTER 9](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21918814/chapters/52316629).  
GO HOME WITH HIM. ;) --> PROCEED TO [CHAPTER 10](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21918814/chapters/52316695).


	9. Chapter 9

"Oh!" you answer. "Totally fine, we can go a little earlier. If we leave straight from here at five that's plenty of time."

"Where is this that we're going?" says Jeff.

"I haven't actually been there yet," you admit. "Shit, I don't even fully remember what it's called. This new like, incredibly chill sandwich place opened up kind of just a little over from my place, in my neighborhood. A _bistro_, or whatever - god, you know tons of students live over by me so it gets pretty hipstery sometimes."

"Pressing F to pay respects."

"Thank you, thank you. But yeah I thought we could maybe, I dunno, swing by and have a lil - sammie date. See what the fuss is about."

"Sandwich date," he echoes. The look he gives you is almost, _almost_ like maybe he doesn't understand what you're saying. 

"Yeah, I dunno, people are saying it's supposed to be really good? I haven't, like, Yelped it or anything, but figured it was worth a shot. Doesn't have to be serious or take too long, just. Would like to uh. Get some food with you." You feel the blush rising up your neck and do your best to fight it back down, damnit. "I uh, I know this started off at like. NC-17. But I wouldn't mind taking it back down to PG-13 or something and trying to do this the _proper way_." 

You offer him a goofy smile to match your affected, goofy voice, scritching a little at his hand with one finger. You watch as his expression slowly morphs - he goes on a bit of a face journey, honestly - but lands on a smile, too, cute, reciprocated. "A sandwich..._date_. All right, Patrick, let's do it. But it will have to be super-quick because I gotta haul my ass home on the metro after in time for the podcast."

"Oh sure sure sure, absolutely. No pressure."

"Okay well see you then, hot stuff," says Jeff, winking and slumping further down into the chair - twisting around, even, so his legs flop up over the arm, deliberately puddle-melting into it in a way that makes you laugh. "Now back to the drawing board. The literal drawing board. I am dying."

You reach down and snatch his stylus away, draw a big kitty-cat _nya_ face across his screen, and then zip away, and he laughs and looks for something to throw at you but doesn't land on anything fast enough before you disappear.

Obviously you see each other again between then and Thursday evening, you fucking work together. 

(And text each other, of course. You do find the Yelp for the sandwich place, forward it on to him, say _look, they've got dope-looking sides, too_, and he says _Oooh this man of culture taking me to a place with sandwiches AND sides, how charming_, and you say _if you're lucky they might even have. D r i n k s_. Then he sends you the meme of Kermit drinking tea, so you send him the gif of Kermit and Christian Bale nodding at each other, and then it devolves into Batman jokes and then you have to stop because you've got a _numbers_ meeting with Simone, yuck.)

But as five o'clock Thursday approaches, you start feeling - you dunno - _excited_, you guess. It's been a while since you went on anything even remotely resembling a date, and way longer than that even since you went on a date with someone you actually really _like_. This should be so good. Walking down to the subway with him in the nasty wet-cold of a world about to February, not _holding hands_ or anything like that but still knocking your shoulders together every once in a while, flip-flopping between idle comments about your lingering work projects and comfortable silence - feels real good. Sitting next to him on the subway and showing each other dumb shit on your phones in the brief flickers where you actually get service feels real good. 

("Oh, god, look at this picture from Brian's birthday party," he says, tipping Facebook in your direction. "That's his roommate, right?"

"Oh, god, I hope so.")

It's not quite peak dinner hours or anything, not yet, so the bistro isn't super busy. Like a lot of good as hell places you've found in the city, it's a long and narrow space, stretching back off its storefront deeper than it is wide. You place your orders at the counter, paying separately because it's fucking 2020 and you're both adults - you get something with a fried egg on it that looks fucking wild and incredible, and Jeff opts for something a little more classic that comes on some dope-looking bread - and then shuffle to a two-seater table near the back, low-lit and unobtrusive, to wait.

"What do people talk about on dates, anyway?" you joke, scooching the little glass-jar-with-fake-candle around on the surface of your table because oof that's some corny shit. "I feel like I should be asking you all sorts of invasive personal questions in an effort to better understand you as a human being whom I'd like to do dick stuff with some time in the future. Isn't that how this works."

It does get a laugh out of him, thank god, or you were gonna feel extra weird. "Well, I'm a Virgo," he starts.

"Literally don't know what that means."

"Ugh, typical Leo," he says. He's still smiling, but you genuinely don't know how to answer that. "Um," he says. "I like video games, a lot - "

"Okay, this I knew, this I knew - "

"Scary ones are good, cute ones are good also. I'm allergic to dogs."

"Oh wait, I thought cats!" 

"Oh. No, I have a cat, Pat."

"Oh." That actually is something you didn't know about him, which seems weird. "_I_ have a cat."

"Yeah, I know." 

It's so, so insanely awkward for about five beats. You move the candle around again, and Jeff plucks at his napkin that's rolled up around his silverwear. You are blessedly saved by the arrival of your sandwiches. Oh, god, yours looks amazing, and it has this little arugula salad shit on the side, fuck yeah. Oh, wait, Jeff's came with _tots_.

"Shit, yours has tots!" you cry.

"Oh heeelll yeah," he says. "That's like half the reason I ordered this one. They have some kind of sprinkly cheese stuff up in there too." Without even thinking about it, you reach over and snatch one of his tater tots up and pop it in your mouth. "Oh my god, Patrick! Don't touch my food you ass!"

"Sorry," you say, but you're way not sorry, grinning around your mouthful. Jeff's still making a face, and oh - shit, you hope he isn't _actually_ pissed at you. "I'm sorry," you say, more authentically. But he just glares a little more, shakes his head like _oh, you,_ and tucks in to his sandwich. You're quick to follow suit. 

You don't talk much while you're eating, because these sandwiches _rule_. You're making a huge mess, the yolk of your egg dripping absolutely everywhere on your plate, and wordlessly Jeff reaches over to an adjacent empty table and steals you some extra napkins; you remember at the last minute not to talk with your mouth full, and wait till you swallow to murmur, "Thanks." Jeff checks his phone pretty frequently, especially the closer it gets to six. 

"Shit, I guess you gotta go, huh."

"Yeah, I think I do. You can have the rest of my tots if you want, reheating potato stuff sucks."

"Aww, thanks."

"Sorry to cut out so quick. I really have to get back for the recording."

"No, no worries! I know I kind of sprung this on you." 

"Thanks. You're a prince." Jeff gives his hands a last wipe on his own napkin, stands up, grabs his coat and his messenger bag, and - before he leaves, ducks down to press a beard-scratchy kiss against your cheek. Oh, that's _really nice_, except for - 

"Eugh get this egg off your face!" He laughs and wipes at his mouth.

"Oh, god, there's really egg on my face now," you quip, and he shakes his head at you as he heads for the door. 

...You are suddenly eating an egg-dripped arugula side salad by yourself, which seems like way more of a bummer in real life than it did in your head. Hmph. But all things considered - and oh, god, _especially_ compared to some other truly nightmare-inducing _first dates_ you have been on - that could've been a lot worse.

You text him, _sandwiches own._ when you get home. But then, _seriously, that was fun! again sometime? soon?_

He leaves you on read for like, a _while_, so you shrug to yourself a little and drop it, try to get a couple chores done around your house (okay, yeah, those leftovers have a very distinct odor, goodbye and godspeed). The answer finally comes: _Sorry, trying to check my calendar. I know whens good for me but dont know your schedule as well, maybe when we get into work we can find something._

_>cool,_ you answer.

Eventually, you find something. Date two is to some weird theater thing Simone recommends, and it is _weird_, and you're definitely not sure if you like it, or if you even "get" theater, really. Jeff is super into it, though, and he spends most of your walk from the theater back to the subway trying to explain it to you from his perspective, which is like - it's cool to have a dialogue, but he's getting weirdly heated. But whatever, no big deal. You split up in the metro, because he's gotta go straight home, he's got an early-early Megabus back to Philly in the morning. You wake up to fourteen texts from him, bored out of his mind on the drive, and you meticulously (and absolutely non-seriously) answer every one, including the request for a bathroom selfie to spice up his trip. 

It's frustrating, because your texts are fine, mostly the same as before, but every date you manage to go on stays strange and strained. He pitches some new pop-up ice cream place, and you go along with it because you want so badly for it to be nice and fun, even though you know it's gonna tear your guts up, which it does. It's cute as shit to see him get whipped cream stuck on his nose, though, and he doesn't even squawk in protest too bad when you lean over and lick it off. You rent bicycles and fuck around in the park, try to see if you can spot that crazy internet-famous duck, but you never do, probably because it's still kind of winter, and you're both just out of breath enough from pedaling that it makes it hard to talk. You get a couple good makeout sessions in - the park is perfect for that, you find some secluded lump of rocks and discover how _incredibly_ sensitive his ears are, Jeff Ramos life hacks - but you never manage to go back to anybody's house afterward; some scheduling conflict or date-induced incident cockblocks you, or the energy just goes _off_ like spoiled food, and it's easier just to meet back up at work in the morning with rejuvenated smiles, and text him _ummm hello your ass in those red pants you wore today? that's illegal_ and get his cheeky emojis in response.

You just - you feel like it should be getting better, with each successive date. The awkwardness evaporating off as you get more comfortable with it, learn each other better, find cooler ways to have fun. Instead, every one feels like the first one, that same _welp awkward but could have been worse!_ vibe. Not to like, ruin your edgy gamer-goth Nerd On Line image, or whatever, but - you _like_ dates, you like doing cute shit with the person you like and getting close to them. It's a huge fucking bummer when you realize you have to admit to yourself that you haven't actually liked a lot of this.

So that's when you have to call him on it. God, you'd much rather text him, both because your texting energy has been miles better lately and also because serious personal conversations suck ass, but you force yourself to suck it up and be an adult about it, catching a quick moment with him in an empty phonecall room so you can just - 

"So hey," you say. "Just wanted to like. Do you still wanna go out with me?"

"Oh, goddamnit," he says, with the tone of someone who has also been expecting-but-dreading this.

"Be--because if you don't, you can just tell me," you continue, trying to stay cool about it. You _are_ cool about it - mostly. Mostly cool. Lukewarm. "I don't want you to feel - feel obligated, to like. Do things you're not into."

Jeff sighs, a huffy little thing, and pops his hands onto his hips, looking at your shoes. "I just - I just _wanted_ to be into it, so bad!" he says. "Because _you_ were so into it? And you were so cute, getting all excited about lining our schedules up and stuff, I didn't want to like. Pop your balloon about it or whatever." His eyes return to yours and he sighs again. "My um. My last couple relationships were - really cute, like this," he says, and oh, shit, suddenly it's tragic backstory time, and you shift to sit, kind of, prop your ass on the edge of the table. "Lots of really couply shit where we did everything together and bought each other cute trinkets and did big romantic dates or cute little small ones, all the time. And none of it ended well, for me, I guess. Not bad but not - well. And it's just hard not to feel like that when I do shit like this with you. And I don't want to! Because I think you're so sweet! Ugh, this is stupid." 

He looks like he's really struggling with this, a little tsundere-grumpy, candid. And you can't even get upset with him, really, because you just feel sort of _bad_ about the whole thing, but you have to admit, it does kind of - sting, in a weird distant way like it's happening to someone else but their pain's getting transferred onto you, or something. You were trying so _hard_.

"It's okay," you say, eventually. "If - if you don't like it, we don't have to - I would, I would never want to like, we could just - "

"Oh, Patrick, listen to yourself," he says, giggling a little just from the awkwardness. "You love this shit! I don't wanna - You deserve to be able to do the things you like to do, that you wanna do with somebody. And if it's gonna be weird no matter what for one of us, one way or the other, I'm gonna feel like an asshat about it the whole time." He shuffles, foot to foot, and wipes his hand down over his face. "Maybe we should just... Not?"

You sigh, too, and run your hand over your face, too, and you reluctantly admit, "Maybe we should just not." Fuck. "Fuck, I'm sorry."

"No, _I'm_ sorry!" he says immediately. "I had no idea it was gonna feel like this, and I should have just been up front with you about it from the start once I realized that we were never gonna like, see eye to eye on this."

"Oh god, Jeff Ramos, please do not start singing I2I at me, I have had enough of that for a lifetime."

He cracks up laughing, which seems to stopper up whatever other emotional spiral he was about to go on, which is exactly what you were trying to do, so like. Mission accomplished. Maybe you do know Jeff a little better than you thought. "Oh god, no," he says. "Jesus. That's the last thing you deserve right now."

"Thank you for understanding."

"Oh my god." 

He shifts over to the table next to you, leans his ass against it, too, and knocks his hip into yours. "Um. We good?"

"Yeah," you say. "Yeah we're good." And you don't even think you're just saying that. You think it's probably true.

> **END OF THE LINE!!** Looks like your adventure with JEFF is now over. Try starting a new adventure by going back to chapter 1! Or you can always just back up a few steps, if you'd like to make different choices. :) Thanks for playing GILL OR BE GILLED! 


	10. Chapter 10

You let your smile go dark and broad, and you press your hand a little harder into his on the arm of the chair, dig your thumb in in a slow, deliberate roll at the fleshy part of his thumb, just the once. "Well," you say, "maybe I could come over after."

You can _see_ his neck go hot and red, it's delicious. "Now that's not a bad idea," he says, soft and cheeky-casual. "You might catch the tail end of the show, but people have places to be, they'll clear out pretty quick."

"Looking forward to it," you tell him. You untangle your hand from his, give it a couple hard-platonic pats, and then slip away, leaving him groaning into his tablet again. 

(He texts you later, _About time you put your money where your mouth is, Gill._

You answer, _and where, exactly, was my mouth?_)

Five p.m. Thursday gets there so fast, and ten p.m. Thursday gets there so, so slowly. You dick around on Twitch for like an hour, and then dick around with Charlie for like fifteen minutes, and then dick around trying to figure out like, _should you change your clothes? should you make an effort or does that look weird?_ Oh, god - should you _pack a bag_? You stuff an extra pair of underwear inside your regular messenger bag with all your regular shit and decide that's probably fine. Lord knows people have seen you wear the same shit to work two days in a row before. (Oh god damnit, it's not even eight-thirty.)

Jeff texted you his address - you're realizing you've never been to his place before, which seems wild - and it is gonna be a little bit of a haul to MTA it over there, so you let yourself leave pretty early, picking up a fucking massive bottle of water at a bodega along the way. It's cold out, and your train ride is long, and stuffy, and boring, but as you drift down the line you can feel the anticipation thrumming up in your blood. You start tapping your fingers restlessly against the subway pole you're hanging from, and you think maybe you're smiling an insane person's smile. You school your face back normal and focus on your phone like everybody else. 

This is the most elegant booty call you've ever been on in your life. 

As you stroll up on Jeff's place, his podcast pals are just now spilling out of it. You don't know any of them very well, but they clearly recognize you, from Polygon videos and just like, the internet at large; they give you some friendly _hi-byes_ as they head off their own separate ways, leaving just you at the bottom of Jeff's stoop-steps and Jeff in the doorway at the top, and now you're _both_ smiling like idiots and no one's looking at you so it's way more acceptable, you figure. You don't say anything, just shuffle on up the stairs after him, to a smooth white door on the second floor.

"Welcome to my humble abode," Jeff cheeses, spreading his arms dramatically. 

Oh, shit - you let out a low little whistle - Jeff's place is _nice_. Like, maybe not necessarily high-end fancy, but the whole shit feels like one substantial tier above the level of your own place. He's got furniture that isn't from Ikea. He's got curtains that match his sofa pillows. He has a real-ass kitchen and all his artwork is in frames. Okay, you're suitably impressed. You turn to give him a look like _damn, okay_ and he just keeps smirking and raises his eyebrows. 

He's also got - 

"Wait, you have a cat?" you gasp, as the little white thing appears out of nowhere. "Hey, hey, buddy. Why did I think you were allergic?"

"She's just a foster," says Jeff. "She probably won't be around for long, so I'm trying not to get too attached." He frowns. "It's hard though."

"God, I can't even imagine." You stand back up off the floor, stop trying to get her to come to you; it's clear she's shy, and also not digging the Chorl smell all over you. "Well, cool. I really like your place. You wanna give me the rest of the tour?"

"Or we could skip to the bedroom?" he chirps, fully undermining the subtleties of your innuendo.

You confirm, "Or we could skip to the bedroom."

You skip to the bedroom. 

Jeff is - straightforward, to say the least. He takes your bag from your shoulder and thunks it down onto his desk chair. Deftly pushes off your coat and throws it over the back. He plants his hand in the middle of your chest, square-on, and takes one beat to just _look_ at you, and then twists his fingers into the fabric and uses it to tug your mouth down and into his. You slide one arm down and over his shoulders to rub wide-open-palmed across his back, pushing just a _little_, just enough that you know he can feel it. He sucks your tongue into his mouth.

This feels - insanely satisfying and good. You feel like this is the exact inevitable conclusion of all the texts you've been sharing all month, feel the tension that they've been building coursing back and forth between the two of you like a jumping electric spark, as he makes moves to unbutton your shirt and you just touch him, _touch_ him, stroking his back, dragging your nails up through the short clip of his hair. God, what would have happened if you hadn't said anything, hadn't gracelessly invited yourself over to his house? Would y'all have just been like, text message edging each other for _months_? Nah, fuck that. You slide your hands around front and start getting at his shirt buttons, too. You've been fucking waiting for this. 

"Oooh, Patrick," he giggles, that faux-cutesy little shit he does, as you slide your mouth down off his mouth to his jaw, rubbing your scruffy chins together, seeking out the muskiest, headiest pockets of his neck. You immediately make it your secret bonus objective: fuck him up so good that he stops doing that and just moans your name for real. Your hands finish with his buttons and his shirt falls open around his thick chest.

"Stop me if you've heard this one, but," you murmur, voice buzzing into his sternum, and then you twist your neck over and bite down on the softest, fleshiest bit of his pectoral, his hard nipple and then some. You can't help it, he's fucking _biteable_. He _yelps_ with it, and one of his hands flies up into your hair, his fingers twisting deep. Oh, shit yeah, that's the good stuff. You switch nipples and do it again. 

"You taste fucking good," you tell him, licking back up his chest to come up and kiss him again. Jeff just whines into your mouth, part teasing part desperate, and works a little harder on getting your shirt all the way off. You double down and contribute to that cause as well, till you're both shirtless, just handsily touching everywhere as you kiss and rock against each other. You notice, faintly, now that you're not talking, that he's got music playing from somewhere, too soft for you to really catch much of what it is but enough to _~set the mood_, and just. Damn. Classiest booty call ever. 

Jeff's massaging his thumbs into your ribs where he's got his hands wrapped around your waist, draws your tongue into his mouth before chasing it back into your own. "I gotta," he half-says, vague, but you get the picture when he starts pivoting your bodies around so he can sit down on the bed; there's a moment, where he's sitting and you're standing and you just _tower_ over him, that rushes to your head so fast you get lowkey get dizzy with it, _shit_, but it passes as he tugs you down to sit with him. You both sit, then you both lay down, going the wrong way across his bed, on your sides, still touching and tasting, breathing more heavily. God, his skin is _warm_ to the touch, he must run a couple degrees hotter than you, and it feels so good to grab up big handfuls of him and tug him close, hear him moan into your mouth when you find a good spot - his ribs and his stomach are really sensitive, oh shit, that tracks, of course, you bet he's _really_ \- 

"Ahh! No, no no no, stop stop," he whines, but he's squirming and giggling and oh of _course_ he is _so_ ticklish. You laugh into his neck as you dig your fingers harder into his sides and he just fucking _writhes_ on the bed, gasping, panting out, "Noooo! Now you're going to exploit my weakness for your own personal gains! My dark secrets revealed!"

"Shoulda been more careful," you say, grinning against his throat, but you let up, hiking up on one elbow to look at him. He's rolled to flat on his back now, and you can see the rise and fall of his chest as he catches his breath, the thick shape of his cock where he's hard in his jeans, his skin flushed pink and his eyes crinkling at you without his glasses. God, you wanna wreck his whole fucking shop. You roll over, too, climbing up on top of him, to get your knees straddled low across his thighs and start working on the buttons of his fly. 

"I got," he pants, reaching one hand up to touch you, reaching the other hand down to help. "I got Patrick-safe condoms this time."

"I brought some, too," you say, laughing a little. "We're prepared A-F." You can fit your hand inside his pants, now, and you grope and stroke at his cock through his underwear just enough to make him gasp. 

"You better get _me_ prepared A-F, you nasty boy," he says, and you groan, partly because you are gonna lose your _mind_ if he Jeff-jokes it the whole time and partly because ohhhh, fuck, now _his_ hands are at _your_ fly and you really are just kind of aching to be touched. You roll your hips once or twice up into the touch of his hands and then, with great fucking effort, flop yourself off him and to the side again, separating from him entirely.

"Yo, we gotta get naked," you say. "I still have my fucking _shoes_ on."

He laughs, so warm and choice and beautiful, and he gets to work on wriggling out of his pants, so you commit, too. Untie your shoes, slot 'em next to the bed. Socks, jeans, underpants, and you get everything up in a bundle and set it on the chair along with your coat and your bag, just kind of trying to keep everything together. By the time you're done he's way ahead of you, sitting back on the bed propped up on both hands, smiling and kicking his toes a little, the condoms and lube resting demurely next to his hip. Jeff's staring up at you like you're a _very_ excellent trick that's about to be played on him, and you feel - a little selfconscious, shift your weight some, wipe your hair back from your face. But god he just looks fucking _delicious_, his thick core and his thick cock and all his flushed skin, and this is definitely the first sex you've had since the last time with him and that last time was the first you had in a _while_ and you just. Have to. You just fucking gotta. 

You crazy-grin at him and crane down to kiss at his neck, his chest, his stomach - he squirms, ticklish - and he can so clearly tell where this is going and it just makes him _sigh_. "Fuck yeah, Pat," he breathes out, petting into your hair again. You end up all the way on your knees, flush up against the side of the bed, with one of his legs wrapped around to dig his heel into your spine as you sink your lips around the head of his cock. 

You had every intention of going slow, but as soon as the taste of him sinks onto the back of your tongue you're fucking done for. You swallow down as much of him as you can reasonably manage on a first pass, rolling your tongue along the thick veins on the underside of him, breathing deep through your nose to just _inhale_ the dark musk of him here, _shit_ it's good. His cock isn't exactly long but fuck is it _thick_, stretching at the O of your lips, and you get a couple fleeting thoughts of how wide it'd stretch in other places, too. Just thinking about it makes you whine around his shaft as you start getting your rhythm right. But no - you know what's on the table for this go 'round, he made that just clear enough, and frankly it's very satisfying for him to have already made up his mind about what he wants. It makes it easier for you, makes it feel that much better and smoother when you keep one hand on his cock to keep feeding it into your mouth and reach the other around to find the tube of lube, pop it open and slick your fingers up a little.

"Shit, yes, Patrick, get it in me," Jeff says, shuffling his ass on the bed a little to tip a little further back and let you in. You sit up a bit higher, on your knees, really fucking go _down_ on him like the term implies, bobbing your head to meet your hand, whining thready and quiet when his own hand tightens in your hair. Oh, fuck, he notices, and does it again, harder, more deliberate, tugging your mouth back onto his cock, and you _moan_ \- that's _your_ dark secrets revealed. Shit. But at this point it feels too good for you to care.

Your lubed-up hand finds his entrance, and your middle finger circles once, twice, before pressing inside.

"Fuuuuuuck _me_," he groans. "You know your hands are stupid hot - _nnnh,_ Pat - " You smirk to yourself a little around his cock, as you slide back up to the head, tonguing around his foreskin. Bonus objective: complete. 

It's this incredible feedback loop of - you stroke deep into his hole; so he whines and pulls your hair; so _you_ whine and suck his dick even harder, a closed circuit driving you both insane. You're dying for some friction on your own cock, but you're fucking _busy_, and watching and hearing and _tasting_ as he falls apart is incredible, is exactly what you wanted out of all this, again. You've got three fingers buried hilt-deep in his red-hot ass and his cock is just _pulsing_ against the inside of your cheek when he finally gets both hands in your hair, jerks you up and off his dick, and gasps, "Stop, stop. Just fucking get inside me already. Put the damn condom on and let's _go_."

Tragically, his box of Pat-friendly condoms is brand new and still needs to be opened, and your whole shit is put on pause for like thirty seconds as you fumble with all the shit required to actually get one usable. But you manage, finally, _god_, and Jeff rotates on the bed to actually use it correctly, leans himself back on the pillows at the headboard to make enough room for you to climb up after him, and you flip his legs up over your arms, hike his stretched hole up to your cock, and slowly guide yourself in.

"Mmmmmh, _Patrick_," he whines, and it sounds so _filthy_, your name on his high desperate voice like that. "You feel so _big_, fuck. Take me to church, daddy." His eyes, which were mostly closed, snap back open. "Uhh - sorry, I didn't mean - It was mostly a joke, I just can't fucking shut my dumb mouth - "

"Let's uh. Table that one," you say, because god yeah it was _mostly_ a joke but also your dick was only _mostly_ unaffected by it, and you've never really thought about it before in a non-joke capacity but _whoooof._ Later, later. Right now you've gotta - _move_. You bottom out inside of him, keep one arm hooked under his knee and slide your other hand down to palm at his thick ass, touch at his hole right where your cock is stuffed inside. God, he's so _hot_, warm to the touch and still squirming slightly under your hands, your dick, like he can't just sit still. You use your handful of his ass to steer his hips into a rhythm, one you can match, setting the pace for both of you. He puts one hand on your shoulder and twists one around to grab the headboard and comes along for the fucking ride. 

It's nothing fancy, nothing wild and crazy, just a hard, steady, medium clip _good fuck_. You feel like you both deserve something awesome and uncomplicated. And god, he just feels so _fucking_ good, even just like this, pounding him up the mattress, leaning down to kiss at his mouth and swallow up his little whines and grunts. His ass is fucking impeccable, clenching so hot-tight-perfect around you as you drive inside, and he keeps just touching you everywhere, stroking your chest or pulling your hair again or squeezing, a little reverently in a way that goes right to your fucking head, at the swell of your biceps, where your left arm still clings for leverage at his right leg. He swivels his hips so good to meet yours and it rockets through you, god, you're gonna come _soon_, and you sweep your hand back up around his cock to jerk him off in time with your thrusts, sending him moaning again, still long drawn-out pulls of your name, _Paa-atrick_. The bed judders against the wall and you find yourself, distantly, hoping that this is the wall he shares with his neighbors, who kept him awake so late with their own fucking earlier in the week. It makes you laugh as you kiss back into his mouth, and you're both still laughing, kissing, smiling, when orgasm takes you: him first, spilling messy all over your joined hands around his thick little dick, and you mere heartbeats later, when his climax leaves his ass clenching and pulsing around your cock inside. You thump your forehead down into his chest and slump on top of him and just _laugh_ with it. It's that fucking good. 

"Jeff!" you cry, "that's fucking _amazing_. Thank you." 

"Thank _you_," he insists, wiping your sweat-matted hair up off your forehead, so you can prop up on your chin and look him in the eye. He kisses at you, your cheek and the corner of your eye, and then thumps his hand into the middle of your back. "Okay get up you're squashing me."

"Yessir," you answer. You sit all the way back up, ease his leg back onto the bed, and pinch off the condom as you slide your softening dick back out of him. He points vaguely in the direction of a trashcan where you can throw it. You _think_ you make it, but you're not entirely sure, and you're finding it hard to give a shit.

"D'you need a shower?" he says, but it's muffled - you glance back up and see he's already twisted onto his side and buried his face lazily in a wad of blankets. You can't see the grin on his face, but you hear it in his voice: "I got some washcloths you can use."

You bark out laughing at him. "Ha! Yeah, I think - Just a washcloth, is probably good, I don't need to go full showies. Thanks though."

"For sure." He rolls back over, slowly, and sits up all the way, his elbows resting on his loose-cocked knees. He looks up at you and says, "Um. Do you wanna stay over? It's kind of late..."

Oh. Wow. You catch his eye, and it looks like maybe it was hard for him to even say that. So it'd probably be even harder, on him, if you didn't say, "Oh. Hell yeah, thanks. You live closer to the office anyway, and this way we can get our snuggle on. Fuck yeah."

So you stay the night. The two of you clean yourselves up, including Jeff scrubbing at the small spot on his duvet cover where y'all made kind of a mess - not bad, all things considered, and mostly his fault for rolling over and smearing his jizz around in the first place. You tug on the spare boxers you brought to sleep in, but the winter air outside leaves Jeff's place a little chilly, so he offers you a long-sleeved tee to wear, too. Your wrists stick knobbily out from it but it's loose and comfy around your chest. 

You make one more concentrated effort to get to know his foster kitty better, but she stays skittish, and so you half-ass your way through a bedroom routine and chug a whole bunch of water and then - 

You and Jeff Ramos curl up on his bed, with him very insistently being the little spoon, and go the fuck to sleep.

> THIS SCENE CONTINUES IN [CHAPTER 11](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21918814/chapters/52316728)!


	11. Chapter 11

An alarm sound goes off, just, like, _sickeningly_ early. It takes your brain a couple seconds to process that that's not _your_ alarm sound, and then your body a few more to process that the reason your arm is asleep is because it's trapped under a heavy, sleep-groaning Jeff. Ugh, fuck.

"Do you seriously have to get up this early?" you ask him, as soon as your mouth can form words. 

"I have a routiiine," he whines. "Ugh, but fuck that, what if I just work from home today. My ass hurts and I'm tired." 

You roll over and shove your face into his armpit to muffle your giggles. "I meeean, I'm not your boss, but I'm also not gonna stop you. Do you, baybee." 

"Five more minutes," he says, and he slaps at his nightstand till his phone stops buzzing and clanging. 

It's way, way more than five more minutes before you're awake again. 

There's a soft winter sunlight coming in through Jeff's peachy-colored curtains, and he is out like a _light_ against you, but you're kind of waking up for real, now; you figure your body's on Work Mode B, its routine for when you just kind of say _fuck it_ and don't bother even pretending like you're gonna be on time, but do still fully intend to go to work like a normal person. It looks like Jeff's serious about staying home today, though. Probably for the best - it's gonna look real conspicuous and dirty if you guys roll into the office at the same time _and_ you're still wearing yesterday's shirt. One or the other is probably better. His door is closed, but you can hear a faint feline squeaking from the other side, and you know what that means - oh, geez, you hope your roommate's feeding Charlie - so you delicately extricate yourself from Jeff's snoozing form and put your socks back on your chilly toes.

You look down at Jeff, slack-mouthed and twisted up in the blankets, dead to the world, and try really hard not to just smile your whole face off.

When you finally tiptoe out into the rest of the house, though, looking for the cat food, the little white kitty bolts away from you as soon as you open the door; and when you make it to the kitchen, it turns out she's had an automatic feeder all along. "Okay, what the hell," you whisper, but she's nowhere to be seen.

Now you're in the kitchen, though, which you didn't really get a good look at yesterday, so you twist around, hunched in on yourself a little, taking it all in. Like the rest of Jeff's place, it's just like one click nicer than your own, a decent coffee maker and a sink with a built-in filter on the faucet. Ohh, coffee. That sounds - really good right now, borderline mandatory. You open up the cabinet that looks the most like it's gonna have coffee in it. There's some bags of coffee, some packets of tea bags, a couple weird random condiments and spices; and then on the upper shelves, a jumble of appliances with cords, a blender, a waffle iron.

Shit, Jeff's got a waffle iron? You reach up and grab for it - you're tall enough, anyway - and it looks like it's never even been used. This crystallizes your sudden unbidden desire to make waffles even more. What's the point of having a waffle iron if you never use it. 

Within five minutes you've got a pot of coffee brewing and you've googled _waffle from scratch easy_, rummaging through his cabinets for the things that you need - which he remarkably has all of, too, though again some of it looks untouched - and getting a half-assed batter together. Maybe this is a little weird, but like: waffles! You get two decent-sized ones cranked out of the iron and are working on a third when Jeff stumbles out of his room in boxers and an unzipped hoodie.

"What the fuck are you doing?" he asks fondly.

"I have no fucking idea," you answer, grinning. "Dude, you have a waffle iron!"

"Oh yeah, I forgot about that thing."

"Here. Good morning." You shove your two finished waffles at him - okay, the first one is a little burnt, which you feel kind of bad about, but it's nothing a lil butter and syrup can't fix - along with a cup of the coffee you made. "Uh, I dunno how you take your coffee."

"Pat. This is fucking adorable and also completely ridiculous." But he takes them from you, sits down at the little table that hovers between his kitchen and his living room in the kind of arbitrarily designated "eating zone," and gives you a tiny, earnest smile. "Thank you."

"Sure." 

You finish up your own waffles - the recipe said it made _eight little waffles_, you've ended up with four big ones, easy enough - and sit down across from him, eating a few bites in silence with him. He sips his coffee like, contemplatively, and then finally just sets it down and looks you in the eye and says, 

"Pat, what are we?"

You swallow your mouthful, hard. "Um?" 

"Like, okay, no offense but I have never had a booty call make me waffles before," he says, raising his eyebrows at the spread between you. "Last night was really just a solid A-plus time in there but umm...what is it that you're.... Like, where are we going with this? You know?"

> PUSH IT!! YOU WANT TO BE BOYFRIENDS. --> PROCEED TO [CHAPTER 12](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21918814/chapters/52316776).  
GIVE HIM AN OUT! FRIENDS WITH BENNIES, BABY. --> PROCEED TO [CHAPTER 13](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21918814/chapters/52316797).


	12. Chapter 12

You stare down at your last few bites of waffle, for a beat or two. You've still got some on your fork and you drag it around through the puddle of syrup, slow circles, not actually eating it. Finally, you bring yourself to look back up at him.

He looks - Soft. Vulnerable. Cute as _hell_, sure, but kind of hanging on a precipice, letting himself be the most open with you that he has yet. And yeah, like, things have been working best for you so far by keeping it flirty, light, casual. But he - asked you to stay over. He set up a _doin' it playlist_ for you, and is here right now bailing on work to stay with you and eat your waffles. And maybe this precipice is...one that you just need to finally push him over. 

"Jeff," you tell him, "I think... I think I want you to be my boyfriend." 

Ugh, the instant the word is out of your mouth, you cringe. "Partner?" you try again; "words are so bad. I want - We should - date. We should be dating. If you want. Because I...want." Yeah, that was smooth as shit, Gill. He's definitely gonna want to date you now.

Very softly, Jeff just says, "Okay." 

You genuinely do a fucking double take. "Okay...?"

"Um. Yeah," he says, and he's smiling, fidgeting with his glasses - god, he's _embarrassed_ but he's saying _yes_. "Gaahhhh. Okay, look." He says that, but then he immediately stuffs another bite of waffle in his face, and thoroughly chews and swallows before he starts talking again - you see right through it, and it's _adorable_. "_Look_," he says. "My last couple relationships were like, couply as fuck, and did all sorts of cutesy boyfriendy-and-girlfriendy shit, and then I am - so very obviously not in those relationships anymore," he says. Now a big sip of coffee, too. You give him all the time he needs. "So it's a struggle. It can feel like of weird and gross. But... gahh Patrick you are just so hot and so fucking _cute_. You made me waffles?? On a workday? - Ohh, shit, are you still trying to go to work today?"

"Oh, fuck, I guess I am," you realize. "Okay. Fuck. Okay. I should probably get my shit together and get out of here. But like - " You can't help it: you lunge-lean across the table and take his face in both your hands and kiss him, and it's sticky with maple syrup and you definitely never brushed your teeth but he is your _boyfriend-partner-whatever_ now and it feels. Fucking rad. "Just - thank you," you finish, clumsily. "I really fucking like you, this rules."

"I _am_ gonna refer to you as the boyf when you're not around, you realize that right."

"I will do my best to live with that," you tell him, laughing. "Okay sick do you have like some mouthwash or something, I really probably should actually make an effort here." 

He steers you to the bathroom, shows you where the stuff you can use is, and then ducks out, lets you finish up your shit. You don't look _too_ much like you just spent the night at Jeff's and never went home, you figure. And even if you do - y'all are a _thing_, now, an on-purpose thing that you're claiming and owning, so like fuck the rest of the office if they have shit to say. By the time you finish up he's cleaned up from the waffle stuff, which is weirdly just so cute to you, and he kisses you a couple more times before you leave, slow, hard, boyfriendy. 

"Brace your ass," he says, while actively touching your ass, holding you around the hips right by the front door. "I'm gonna go full boyfriend and you are _not_ prepared. The freaking floodgates are open now, Patrick."

"Do your worst," you growl, grinning, and then you kiss him just one - okay, two more times - and _then_ you finally leave, staggering out into the brisk morning toward the subway, an absolutely stupid spring in your step to match the grin on your face. 

Fuck yeah. You did something good, and you did it _right_. 

(For Valentine's Day - you come into the office and your regular work station is _covered_ in a bazillion tiny red and pink and white origami cranes. There's a little potted plant of catnip sitting among the sprawl with a big bow tied around it, and a picture in a dark cherry-wood-red frame, an art print of Burger Chainz that is so clearly in Jeff's style. Fuck, he got the weird scribbly chest tattoos and everything. There's a jumbo-size package of Sour Patch Kids resting next to the mouse. Jeff is nowhere to be found.

Well, he's somewhere to be found, which is in the break room, and as soon as you find him, he acts like - like _he_ found _you_, like he's been looking for you all morning. He grabs you around the waist and kisses the shit out of you, in front of God and everyone (Simone, Jenna, and Samit, but that's plenty), and you finally realize: he wasn't kidding. And you finally realize: You don't give a shit.

"Happy Valentine's Day, Pat Gill," he says to you. And then he says, "I love you."

You grin your Jeff Ramos stupidity grin right back. "I love you too.")

> **CONGRATULATIONS!!** ♥♥♥ Looks like your adventure with JEFF went swimmingly - you really found the key to his heart! Now, if you like, you can start a new game back at Chapter 1. Thanks for playing GILL OR BE GILLED!


	13. Chapter 13

You take a bite of waffle, just to give yourself a second more to think before you absolutely have to answer. As you chew, you study on Jeff's face, and he looks just... Vulnerable. Wide open. Like he's nervous but like he's trying really hard not to look nervous, and it _sucks_, because the last thing you want to do is wreck this good shit you've got going with him. 

And like. The breezy, casual vibes seem to be what's been working best for him, and you really are perfectly content to hang out there, too. If it ain't broke don't fix it, and all. And maybe something more might be nice, but not if it's gonna make him uncomfortable about any of it, because then that just sucks shit for both of you. You could push him, but you won't. You don't.

"Hey, Jeff, look, we're just. Y'know." You give him an affable lil shrug. "Friends. Friends with bennies. Friends who have dope sex sometimes, is what I'd uh, like to do, if you're. If you're down. Definitely wanna do that again, I think we've got like, you know, got a good thing going."

He exhales a little heavier than you think maybe he needs to, and nods his head, _yeah, yes._ "Oh hell yeah," he says, "absolutely. I'm sorry for farting around on it so long. I'm honestly kind of mad at what I was missing - we were missing, we were missing," he corrects. "As long as it was good for you it was good as _hell_ for me."

"Hell. Yes," you agree. 

"So like..." he says. "Like, I'mma clean up from breakfast and you clean up your face and get your cute ass to work? Sometime this century?"

"Oh, shit," you say, realizing. "Yeah, I guess I better. Yeah. Okay, point me to the mouthwash."

He points you to the mouthwash, and you get your shit together and get the fuck out of there. (Well, he does kiss you one last time before you bolt out the door, which is sweet.) You make your walk-of-no-shame-ass way to the office, and not even Brian gives you the hairy-eyeballed _where were **you** last night?_, so it looks like you made it out scot-free. Jeff works from home often enough, so no one suspects a thing. 

You get better, about texting each other, about lining up your schedules and finding time to hang, time to shoot the shit, time to touch each other tender and brutal and so _fucking_ good in the cradle of your bed or Jeff's bed or one time, memorably, the bathroom at an off-site shoot location. You learn all the Jeff Ramos Sex Hacks, like how sensitive his ears are under the ministrations of your mouth and just _how_ much he likes being able to call you _daddy_. Jeff, for his part, makes good on his holiday t-shirt promise of _eating ass_, gets his dark-scruffed jaw set so _right_ down into the core of you and licks you clean for what feels like hours, fucks your shit up for what feels like years afterward. You don't ever learn his foster cat's name, and she's found her forever home before February is out. You talk about if it's cool to see other people, decide that it is; and eventually, someday, maybe you will. You have to admit to yourself that you really would like to have someone who was more like, partner-y, boyfriend-y, than Jeff seems to want to be. But in the meantime, the sex is _hot as shit_, and you've honestly got zero complaints. 

(It's only _marginally_ embarrassing when he jokingly calls Clayton "daddy" at work and you react immediately as if he's speaking to you, instead. You don't think anyone but Clayton notices, though, and he's always very discreet.)

> **MM, SOUNDS NICE!!** Looks like your adventure with JEFF has found a chill and peaceful ending. If you'd like to start a new game, go back to the beginning with chapter 1! Or you can always backtrack a few steps and make different choices. Thanks for playing GILL OR BE GILLED!


	14. Chapter 14

You drop one or two more kisses on his mouth, and one hard nip at the hinge of his jaw, but then you nod, and begin to pull away. "Yeah, perhaps now is not the time."

Jeff smiles and peels off too, giving your ass one last squeeze on his way. "I do have a reputation to uphold," he teases, returning to his drink. "Of not being a grungy ho who makes out in bars. You hate to see it."

"You really do." 

Brian returns from the restroom, immediately launching into a tirade about cis men who don't think they need to bother to wash their hands, and Clayton returns from his phonecall just as Brian (or, okay, maybe it's you - listen, who can really be sure, the bar was loud) is very emphatically using the word _piss._ So, that's just about par for the course, then. Jeff giggles into his drink's two tiny straws, and you get distracted by a fucking _weird_ ad for Sprite on the bar TV, and everything settles back down into a rhythm that you're used to. 

Jeff doesn't seem upset at _all_ that you put a pin in your shit, which is just incredibly reassuring. You're still not like, entirely sure what's going on there - and that alone is probably reason enough not to try to take it any further right now. You'll find a moment for it some other time, right? Preferably some time when you can finally get all up in each other's faces in _private_, dear god, how does this keep happening to you. 

You could maybe squeeze in one more round before happy hour's over, but only beer-drinkin' Brian bothers - "see, that's my long game here, I had a _strategy_ \- " and soon enough, after a round of slapdash drink-coaster Skull that Clayton smokes you all at and a round of anecdotes that starts at some wild shit Brian's brother Patrick pulled over Christmas and ends with all of you talking about like, the worst thing you could get a tattoo of that you still would actually get a tattoo of, your impromptu boys' night draws to an end and you all peel off to ride the subway home, hollering out about _seeing each other tomorrow!_ and doing your best to stay warm in the frigid January air. 

Waiting for the train, you're - tempted, to text Jeff about it. You keep your conversation with him open, staring at it till your phone falls asleep, swiping it back open, staring at his name. You write and delete about five different things and just hope he's not also looking at it, staring at your dumb hovering ellipsis. By the time the train pulls up and you're getting on and you have to say _something_, the best you can come up with is just, _hey, we good?_ Super articulate there, Patrick, good fucking job. But when you get off at your stop and your bars pop back in, Jeff's just written _Yeah of course!_, and like. Okay. Cool. Good. 

You're still not sure, in the proverbial What Are We sense, what you and Jeff actually like...are. But giving him his space and not digging too deep into it seems to be working best for him so far, and far fucking be it from you to try to crawl in there and make something more out of it. God knows your nuance and emotional intelligence on that sort of thing is so hugely, incredibly rusty assuming you ever had it in the first place. You'll figure it out sooner or later, and in the meantime, it is neither sooner nor later and you're just gonna go home and chill with your cat, and see Jeff at the office in the morning. 

"...His mouth, tho," you say aloud, to Charles, half an hour later when you're slurping up the last of some leftover pasta and dicking around on social media, because you're tired and you're gonna go to bed soon but like. You're maybe still thinking about his mouth. You're maybe still thinking about his hands on your ass in the bar, moving with a confidence, a seriousness, an _I know what the fuck I'm doing_-ness that you don't usually associate with Jeff when it comes to stuff like this that's actually insanely attractive. You're maybe still, _still_, thinking about the casual matter-of-factness with which both he and his dumbass fucking t-shirt design talked about _eating ass_ at the holiday party. 

You've never had your ass ate by somebody with facial hair like his before, and it is a _compelling_ fucking notion. 

You drop your pasta dishes in the sink and encourage Charlie to leave your room, although you don't shut the door all the way because he'll scream if you lock him out. You're not exactly planning for this to take a crazy long amount of time, so it shouldn't really be an issue. You lay back on the bed, in the hazy light of your night-mode computer monitor, shirt-off-sweatpants-on, and remember the press of Jeff's knee between your own. You roll the heel of your hand over your cock through the sweats as you ruminate on the pressures of his mouth, the way his tongue slid smooth and hot into yours at the bar, in Clayton's bathroom. You're noticing, now, that Jeff always seems to be running a couple degrees hotter than you are. You slide your hand past your waistband and cram it into the crease between your thigh and your crotch, just for a moment or two, till it heats up, warmed by your body. You touch yourself again, thumb digging in at the base of your cock where it's hardening up pretty good, now, remembering jerking off with Jeff at the party. God, he was on _fire_, felt so good touching you everywhere, so insistent and firm, just the tiniest bit demanding, but in a way that said _yeah, because I know what I want, and I ought to get it_, and made you want to give it to him. Fuck, okay, you palm at your dick through your sweats again with the other hand, and take your warm hand up to your nipples, just to touch, just a little. 

It doesn't take long for your hand to cool down again, equilibriate (is that a fucking word? your brain wonders; you shake your head to clear the distraction, and you're suddenly reminded you had two hard drinks and not much food), but you press on, stroking over your stomach and twisting at the head of your cock, willing it to get hard enough to go slick, to ease the slide. You remind it, remind yourself, of your fantasy from moments earlier, the preposterously hot concept of Jeff burying his face in you, his prickly beard scraping at the sensitive inside of your asscheeks. You try sliding your middle finger back there, smooth, exploratory. It sends a fucking _shiver_ through you, leaves you jolting like you do when you've nearly fallen asleep at your desk and suddenly flick back to waking, like a lightswitch.

Oh, shit. Okay, maybe it's because you're fucking falling asleep.

You're feeling pretty good, but after a few minutes more of trying, groping, drifting, remembering, you feel pretty certain that you're not gonna get off like this. You don't really need to, you guess. It maybe feels a little weird to get off to somebody when you're not sure where you're at with them, anyway. But you try leaning into it for just a beat or two longer, stroking at your thighs and your not-quite-all-the-way-hard dick, blissing out on just some, y'know, _thoughts_. Some good, sexy vibes that you're thankful to have been able to harness, at least for a minute or two. 

The alcohol's caught up with you, and the long, late reshoots probably took more out of you than you realized until just now, and so you just kind of. Roll over and drift to sleep. 

(You drift to sleep thinking still thinking about Jeff Ramos, and this time it's - well, maybe it's not all jerkoff thoughts, maybe it's just. Thoughts. Jeff's warm skin and confident hands. Jeff's dirty-sweet smile and kind eyes. Your sharp banter in the office, how it good it feels to make him laugh, or how good it felt just to _hold_ him. 

But you figure, you'll worry about that in the morning.)

\------- 

Your alarm goes off and you've got two choices - get up now like a responsible human being and only be slightly late to work, or just say _fuck it_ and be normal, exhausted-ass Patrick late to work.

> GET UP NOW, YA DING-DONG! -> PROCEED TO CHAPTE

nah, just kidding, fuck that.

You roll your tongue across your teeth, and remember with acute revulsion that you fell asleep without brushing your teeth last night, which you should never have done, because _now_ you're remembering you had some strong-ass alcohol last night, and oh jesus, yeah, it's option B. You flop over and pet at Charles's head where he's a foot or so away from you on the mattress, and groan, and bury your face in the pillow for just a little bit longer.

You remember, your last few thoughts before you fell asleep, which maybe even drifted into your dreams. _Jeff._ Jeffff fuckin' Ramos. You groan even harder because you are _still thinking about him,_ and now you don't even have the excuse of jacking off or of having talked to him in the past couple hours, or whatever. You're edging back into _What Are We, tee-em_ territory after trying _so_ hard not to make it a big deal last night and okay, shit, maybe you're not gonna go back to sleep. Maybe you're just gonna lay here and touch your cat and twist your brain (and your heart, maybe, and your dick, kind of) into a fucking knot, trying to pull the pieces together and make sense of it.

When you wake up in the morning still thinking about a guy that you didn't even sleep with, what the fuck does that mean you should _do_?

> YOU'RE OVERREACTING. YOU GUYS ARE STILL CHILL! --> PROCEED TO [CHAPTER 16](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21918814/chapters/52316998).  
THIS PROBABLY MEANS SOMETHING. YOU CAUGHT FEELINGS. --> PROCEED TO [CHAPTER 17](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21918814/chapters/52317016).


	15. Chapter 15

You slide your hands down to dig your thumbs into his hipbones through his jeans, and like, fuck it. You kiss him one more time, but it's fast and sharp and dirty and then you pull away for real, and murmur, "Maybe we should...just get outta here? Head someplace _not_ public?"

"Oooh, _Patrick_." His grin is coy, incorrigible, perfect. "My place or yours?"

"Uhhh." Oh shit - your head reels in panic because you _know_ your place looks like garbo right now, the refuse of unpackaged holiday gifts and purchases forming its own ecosystem around your inadequate trash can, your laundry hamper not doing much better, you _definitely_ haven't cleaned the bathroom since before the holidays - "Uhhhhhh - "

"I'm fucking kidding, my place is way closer and you have a roommate."

"Oh thank god," you breathe out, laughing into his neck. You separate from him all the way this time, swig the last sip of your drink, and tug your phone out of your bag. "What if I just - Venmo Brian for our share of the tab - and we just leave right the fuck now before they can roast us again?"

"I'm not mad about it," Jeff says. He downs the rest of his drink, too, and grabs at your ass one more time. Yeah, you're not mad about it either.

You yank your coats back on and squeeze yourselves to the door of the bar, not actively touching each other but just - standing _real_ close, soaking up each other's heat, reluctant to put too much distance between your bodies. Jeff's always so _warm_ and it's maddening, right now, to have to put your whole shit on pause long enough to get back to his apartment. You spot Clayton immediately as you exit, still on his phone call; he spots _you_ immediately, whoops, and he can't say anything, still listening in on his phone, but he pointedly, dramatically raises one eyebrow at the two of you. He's _real_ good at it. Jeff retaliates with a remarkably realistic hand-to-face, tongue-in-cheek BJ gesture. Clayton _hates_ it, facepalming and then making a sweeping, shooing gesture. You swiftly obey, getting the hell out of there, laughing your way down to the subway station, huddling close in the January air. 

There's only one person's worth of bench seat available on your train car, so you sit, and he stands in the V of your legs, still not touching, just _close_, knocking into each other a little bit if the train sways too hard on the tracks. It's shaping up to be one of the longest train rides of your life, because you're realizing you don't actually know how to get to Jeff's place, you haven't actually been there before. That seems wild, suddenly. Then again, a lot of tonight seems suddenly wild, and very much like it's only about to get wilder. 

By the time you're heading up the steps of his stoop to the front door of his building, you can't fucking take it anymore: no one else is around, so you grab him hard around the waist and slam just a _dizzying_ kiss onto his lips, unable to stop yourself from licking and touching, drinking him up. He squirms and shoves you away, "stop, stop, we're literally right here, let's just - " and buzzes the two of you into the building, and guides you up to his second-floor door with his hands on your hips. Like a bad movie, he's fumbly with the keys, wastes precious time getting you inside. Up against the inside of the door, he kisses you this time.

"You want the grand tour?" he says, smirking, as if that's possibly a question you would say yes to right now. "You wanna meet my foster cat?"

"I thought you were allergic to cats."

"Allergic to dogs."

"Jeff Ramos factoid catalogue corrected."

It _does_ look like a nice place - what little of it you can see around the press of his face to yours, anyway - definitely nicer than your place. He has furniture that _isn't_ from Ikea and curtains that color-coordinate with his sofa cushions. He's got houseplants that are _alive_. But right now, you've kind of got like. Priorities.

"You think we could skip to the bedroom?" 

You skip to the bedroom.

Jeff doesn't waste time. He whips his coat off, strides over to tuck it into his closet, and is gone for what seems like just a beat too long but then oh there's _music_ playing, soft enough that you can't really tell what it is but loud enough to be _there_, ambient, a sweet little touch; then he strides back over and removes _your_ coat, pushing it from your shoulders with his hot, confident hands, throwing it over his desk chair. He plants his hand square in the middle of your chest and takes one beat just to look at you, and you fucking _stare_ back, your breath heavy in your chest under his palm, and then he twists his fingers into the fabric and uses it to tug your mouth down and into his. You slide one arm down and over his shoulders to rub wide-open-palmed across his back, pushing just a _little_, just enough that you know he can feel it. He sucks your tongue into his mouth.

Yeah, _there_ it is. You cooled off a little on your trip back from the bar, but with Jeff's hungry, biting kisses, it's like he's pushing the heat back into you through his mouth, and you moan out an embarrassingly horny little noise that gets trapped up between you. God, what have you been waiting for? It's like every beat of it harkens back to the first time, as he makes moves to unbutton your shirt and you just touch him, _touch_ him, stroking his back, dragging your nails up through the short clip of his hair, and it's so stupid that it took you this long to do this again. Maybe coordinating a round two, turning things from Thing-That-Happened to Thing-That's-Happening, is always a little bit awkward, but maybe the two of you are just _total dumbasses_. You get your head in the game, slide your hands around front and start getting at his shirt buttons, too; you're done fucking waiting. 

"Oooh, Patrick," he giggles, that faux-cutesy little shit he does, as you slide your mouth down off his mouth to his jaw, rubbing your scruffy chins together, seeking out the muskiest, headiest pockets of his neck. You immediately make it your secret bonus objective: fuck him up so good that he stops doing that and just moans your name for real. Your hands finish with his buttons and his shirt falls open around his thick chest.

"Stop me if you've heard this one, but," you murmur, voice buzzing into his sternum, and then you twist your neck over and bite down on the softest, fleshiest bit of his pectoral, his hard nipple and then some. You can't help it, he's fucking _biteable_. He _yelps_ with it, and one of his hands flies up into your hair, his fingers twisting deep. Oh, shit yeah, that's the good stuff. You switch nipples and do it again. 

"You taste fucking good," you tell him, licking back up his chest to come up and kiss him again. Jeff just whines into your mouth, part teasing part desperate, and works a little harder on getting your shirt all the way off. You double down and contribute to that cause as well, till you're both shirtless, just handsily touching everywhere as you kiss and rock against each other. You're not used to the soundscape of his apartment, further off the street and with no roommate around, so it feels surreally quiet in his room, with just the two of you and the soft filthy noises of your bodies coming together and whatever his playlist is still doing, like it's coming from another world. Everything seems so new and bright and clear, and it just makes you want to get filthier, kiss him even harder.

Jeff's massaging his thumbs into your ribs where he's got his hands wrapped around your waist, draws your tongue into his mouth before chasing it back into your own. "I gotta," he half-says, vague, but you get the picture when he starts pivoting your bodies around so he can sit down on the bed; there's a moment, where he's sitting and you're standing and you just _tower_ over him, that rushes to your head so fast you get lowkey get dizzy with it, _shit_, but it passes as he tugs you down to sit with him. You both sit, then you both lay down, going the wrong way across his bed, on your sides, still touching and tasting, breathing more heavily. God, his skin is _warm_ to the touch, he _must_ run a couple degrees hotter than you, and it feels so good to grab up big handfuls of him and tug him close, hear him moan into your mouth when you find a good spot - his ribs and his stomach are really sensitive, oh shit, that tracks, of course, you bet he's _really_ \- 

"Ahh! No, no no no, stop stop," he whines, but he's squirming and giggling and oh of _course_ he is _so_ ticklish. You laugh into his neck as you dig your fingers harder into his sides and he just fucking _writhes_ on the bed, gasping, panting out, "Noooo! Now you're going to exploit my weakness for your own personal gains! My dark secrets revealed!"

"Shoulda been more careful," you say, grinning against his throat, but you let up, hiking up on one elbow to look at him. He's rolled to flat on his back now, and you can see the rise and fall of his chest as he catches his breath, the thick shape of his cock where he's hard in his jeans, his skin flushed pink and his eyes crinkling at you without his glasses. God, you wanna wreck his whole fucking shop. You roll over, too, climbing up on top of him, to get your knees straddled low across his thighs and start working on the buttons of his fly. 

"I got," he pants, reaching one hand up to touch you, reaching the other hand down to help. "I got Patrick-safe condoms. Uh, after last time."

"I brought some, too," you admit, laughing a little. "We're prepared A-F." You can fit your hand inside his pants, now, and you grope and stroke at his cock through his underwear just enough to make him gasp. 

"You better get _me_ prepared A-F, you nasty boy," he says, and you groan, partly because you are gonna lose your _mind_ if he Jeff-jokes it the whole time and partly because ohhhh, fuck, now _his_ hands are at _your_ fly and you really are just kind of aching to be touched. You roll your hips once or twice up into the touch of his hands and then, with great fucking effort, flop yourself off him and to the side again, separating from him entirely.

"Yo, we gotta get naked," you say. "I still have my fucking _shoes_ on."

He laughs, so warm and choice and beautiful, and he gets to work on wriggling out of his pants, so you commit, too. Untie your shoes, slot 'em next to the bed. Socks, jeans, underpants, and you get everything up in a bundle and set it on the chair along with your coat, just kind of trying to keep everything together. By the time you're done he's way ahead of you, sitting back on the bed propped up on both hands, smiling and kicking his toes a little, the condoms and lube resting demurely next to his hip. Jeff's staring up at you like you're a _very_ excellent trick that's about to be played on him, and you feel - a little selfconscious, shift your weight some, wipe your hair back from your face. But god he just looks fucking _delicious_, his thick core and his thick cock and all his flushed skin, and this is definitely the first sex you've had since the last time with him and that last time was the first you had in a _while_ and you just. Have to. You just fucking gotta. 

You crazy-grin at him and crane down to kiss at his neck, his chest, his stomach - he squirms, ticklish - and he can so clearly tell where this is going and it just makes him _sigh_. "Fuck yeah, Pat," he breathes out, petting into your hair again. You end up all the way on your knees, flush up against the side of the bed, with one of his legs wrapped around to dig his heel into your spine as you sink your lips around the head of his cock. 

You had every intention of going slow, but as soon as the taste of him sinks onto the back of your tongue you're fucking done for. You swallow down as much of him as you can reasonably manage on a first pass, rolling your tongue along the thick veins on the underside of him, breathing deep through your nose to just _inhale_ the dark musk of him here, _shit_ it's good. His cock isn't exactly long but fuck is it _thick_, stretching at the O of your lips, and you get a couple fleeting thoughts of how wide it'd stretch in other places, too. Just thinking about it makes you whine around his shaft as you start getting your rhythm right. But no - you know what's on the table for this go 'round, he made that just clear enough, and frankly it's very satisfying for him to have already made up his mind about what he wants. It makes it easier for you, makes it feel that much better and smoother when you keep one hand on his cock to keep feeding it into your mouth and reach the other around to find the tube of lube, pop it open and slick your fingers up a little.

"Shit, yes, Patrick, get it in me," Jeff says, shuffling his ass on the bed a little to tip a little further back and let you in. You sit up a bit higher, on your knees, really fucking go _down_ on him like the term implies, bobbing your head to meet your hand, whining thready and quiet when his own hand tightens in your hair. Oh, fuck, he notices, and does it again, harder, more deliberate, tugging your mouth back onto his cock, and you _moan_ \- that's _your_ dark secrets revealed. Shit. But at this point it feels too good for you to care.

Your lubed-up hand finds his entrance, and your middle finger circles once, twice, before pressing inside.

"Fuuuuuuck _me_," he groans. "You know your hands are stupid hot - _nnnh,_ Pat - " You smirk to yourself a little around his cock, as you slide back up to the head, tonguing around his foreskin. Bonus objective: complete. 

It's this incredible feedback loop of - you stroke deep into his hole; so he whines and pulls your hair; so _you_ whine and suck his dick even harder, a closed circuit driving you both insane. You're dying for some friction on your own cock, but you're fucking _busy_, and watching and hearing and _tasting_ as he falls apart is incredible, is exactly what you wanted out of all this, again. You've got three fingers buried hilt-deep in his red-hot ass and his cock is just _pulsing_ against the inside of your cheek when he finally gets both hands in your hair, jerks you up and off his dick, and gasps, "Stop, stop. Just fucking get inside me already. Put the damn condom on and let's _go_."

Tragically, his box of Pat-friendly condoms is brand new and still needs to be opened, and your whole shit is put on pause for like thirty seconds as you fumble with all the shit required to actually get one usable. But you manage, finally, _god_, and Jeff rotates on the bed to actually use it correctly, leans himself back on the pillows at the headboard to make enough room for you to climb up after him, and you flip his legs up over your arms, hike his stretched hole up to your cock, and slowly guide yourself in.

"Mmmmmh, _Patrick_," he whines, and it sounds so _filthy_, your name on his high desperate voice like that. "You feel so _big_, fuck. Take me to church, daddy." His eyes, which were mostly closed, snap back open. "Uhh - sorry, I didn't mean - It was mostly a joke, I just can't fucking shut my dumb mouth - "

"Let's uh. Table that one," you say, because god yeah it was _mostly_ a joke but also your dick was only _mostly_ unaffected by it, and you've never really thought about it before in a non-joke capacity but _whoooof._ Later, later. Right now you've gotta - _move_. You bottom out inside of him, keep one arm hooked under his knee and slide your other hand down to palm at his thick ass, touch at his hole right where your cock is stuffed inside. God, he's so _hot_, warm to the touch and still squirming slightly under your hands, your dick, like he can't just sit still. You use your handful of his ass to steer his hips into a rhythm, one you can match, setting the pace for both of you. He puts one hand on your shoulder and twists one around to grab the headboard and comes along for the fucking ride. 

It's nothing fancy, nothing wild and crazy, just a hard, steady, medium clip _good fuck_. You feel like you both deserve something awesome and uncomplicated. And god, he just feels so _fucking_ good, even just like this, pounding him up the mattress, leaning down to kiss at his mouth and swallow up his little whines and grunts. His ass is fucking impeccable, clenching so hot-tight-perfect around you as you drive inside, and he keeps just touching you everywhere, stroking your chest or pulling your hair again or squeezing, a little reverently in a way that goes right to your fucking head, at the swell of your biceps, where your left arm still clings for leverage at his right leg. He swivels his hips so good to meet yours and it rockets through you, god, you're gonna come _soon_, and you sweep your hand back up around his cock to jerk him off in time with your thrusts, sending him moaning again, still long drawn-out pulls of your name, _Paa-atrick_. The bed judders against the wall, almost certainly audible from the other side, and you can't even find it in yourself to care - at this point, the cliche is actually just _fucking delightful_, you don't think you've ever done that before. It makes you laugh as you kiss back into his mouth, and you're both still laughing, kissing, smiling, when orgasm takes you: him first, spilling messy all over your joined hands around his thick little dick, and you mere heartbeats later, when his climax leaves his ass clenching and pulsing around your cock inside. You thump your forehead down into his chest and slump on top of him and just _laugh_ with it. It's that fucking good. 

"Jeff!" you cry, "that's fucking _amazing_. Thank you." 

"Thank _you_," he insists, wiping your sweat-matted hair up off your forehead, so you can prop up on your chin and look him in the eye. He kisses at you, your cheek and the corner of your eye, and then thumps his hand into the middle of your back. "Okay get up you're squashing me."

"Yessir," you answer. You sit all the way back up, ease his leg back onto the bed, and pinch off the condom as you slide your softening dick back out of him. He points vaguely in the direction of a trashcan where you can throw it. You _think_ you make it, but you're not entirely sure, and you're finding it hard to give a shit.

"D'you need a shower?" he says, but it's muffled - you glance back up and see he's already twisted onto his side and buried his face lazily in a wad of blankets. You can't see the grin on his face, but you hear it in his voice: "I got some washcloths you can use."

You bark out laughing at him. "Ha! Yeah, I think - Just a washcloth, is probably good, I don't need to go full showies. Thanks though."

"For sure." He rolls back over, slowly, and sits up all the way, his elbows resting on his loose-cocked knees. He looks up at you and says, "Um. Do you wanna stay over? It's kind of late..."

Oh. Wow. You catch his eye, and it looks like maybe it was hard for him to even say that. So it'd probably be even harder, on him, if you didn't say, "Oh. Hell yeah, thanks. Less of a commute for me in the morning, and this way we can get our snuggle on. And I can meet your kitty! Fuck yeah."

So you stay the night. The two of you clean yourselves up, including Jeff scrubbing at the small spot on his duvet cover where y'all made kind of a mess - not bad, all things considered, and mostly his fault for rolling over and smearing his jizz around in the first place. You tug your boxers back on, but the winter air outside leaves Jeff's place a little chilly, so he offers you a long-sleeved tee to sleep in, too. Your wrists stick knobbily out from it but it's loose and comfy around your chest. 

You half-ass your way through a bedroom routine, and chug a whole bunch of water, and then you and Jeff Ramos curl up on his bed, with him very insistently being the little spoon, and go the fuck to sleep.

> THIS SCENE CONTINUES IN [CHAPTER 11](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21918814/chapters/52316728)!


	16. Chapter 16

Look, the first thing you should do is brush your goddamn teeth. 

Yeah, fuck it, you give up trying to stay in bed. Maybe if you roll out now you can actually make it to work on time. You slide steadily into your morning routine, throw in some mouthwash which you usually don't bother with but _god_ do you need it right now, half-ass a shower, don't shave. You focus on the beats of getting ready for your day, the simple tasks that don't take a lot of brain power but that make _sense_, that you know the ins and outs of and don't have to worry about too much. It's maybe not enough to _snap you out of it_, but the more you think about it, the less sure you are that it's something you need to be snapped out of in the first place.

You fix yourself with a gaze in the mirror. "Hey, hey dude?" you say. "Hey Patrick? Chill the _fuck_ out about this Jeff stuff." 

Charlie chooses that moment to _yoww_ at you about his stanky litterbox, and it startles the shit out of you for a second because it almost sounded like someone was answering what you were saying to...yourself, and god, you have to laugh. You do laugh, and you scoop Charlie up and hold him to the mirror, looking at the two of you. Charles has absolutely no fuckin' idea that a mirror is a thing and has no perception of there being another cat, or a reflection he can identify as his own extant self, or anything. "God I wish that were me," you coo at him, before kissing his lil head and setting him down. 

You finish your routine, and head out the door just _remarkably_ punctually, and halfway to the subway you get a text message, from Jenna, asking if you want her to grab you a coffee on her way in since she still owes you from last Tuesday or if you're gonna be late, like normal, and it'll be cold by then. You send her the middle finger emoji but then apologize immediately and say _yes please_. 

You see the texts, from last night, between you and Jeff. _hey, we good? Yeah of course!_ You smile, a little. You're good. Of course. 

And so maybe it's a _little_ bit awkward, when you see him at this Friday morning stand-up and you didn't even think this was a meeting he needed to be at, and he just waggles his eyebrows at you from across the room; but you figure, well, it's probably always awkward to see someone you almost hooked up with but didn't the night before out in the light of day again. Maybe you stare at his mouth, just a _little_, but that's because he keeps tapping the end of his pen against his lower lip and it's kind of distracting. Maybe you follow him just a _little_ too closely after the meeting's over, crowding up behind him as everyone pushes out of the room and heads back to their stations, letting your hips knock into his. 

"_Hey, we good?_" you whisper in his ear, low and as flirty as you dare at the office. 

Jeff deadpans, "Maybe _hey, we good_ will be our 'always.'"

You laugh your ass off and hold the door open for Susana. 

You still think about him, a lot, of course. You're working with him all the time, on Overboard or on the weird illustrations you're apparently putting on merch now. You stay in each other's orbit, and you do it on purpose. You just don't - _dwell_. You text, sometimes, and it's flirty and sexy, but you don't think too hard about it, just let it flow free, baby. You hang out, sometimes, but there's never that cloud hanging overhead of _oh yeah, but what if - more?_ The answer to _What Are We_ turns out to be that like, maybe you just..._are_. Like Charlie staring at his reflection in the mirror and not giving a flying fuck - you don't have to look shit dead in the eye and claim it as something real. 

Maybe that's why, when you finally do hook up again - right after filming Brian's romanceable-NPC-themed Valentine's Day special Unraveled, after spouting off horribly-written flirty video game dialogue to each other (and Jenna, and Brian, and _Tara_) for a couple hours and thinking, yeah, what the hell - it turns out to be like. Cool, and good, but nothing special.

"Welp, thanks!" you quip, lying fully on your back the wrong way across his bed. He bought latex-free condoms for you, which was so super-sweet, but you also brought your own, because you were actually prepared this time, and now he's got a whole box of those and you're kind of wondering, a little bit, if he can return them, since y'all didn't open them yet. Or, well - you figure he can probably still use them with other people, huh. But still.

"_Thanks_? Dude you just wrecked my ass to shit and I get _thanks_?" He's sitting the right way across his bed, his leg propped up bizarrely across your chest, in a way that's heavy and funny and just absolutely fine. 

"Hey, man, you asked for it," you say. You roll over, shifting his leg on top of you, to look at him, although neither of you have your glasses on so it's kind of just you, squinting, at him, squinting. "You didn't seem to have a problem with it _in media res_." 

"_In media res_-t in pieces," he says, nudging his foot into your stomach a little so you roll back over.

"That wasn't anything."

"It wasn't, it wasn't, I'm tired." 

"Mmm, maybe I should get outta your hair so you can sleep, then," you say, stretching your arms long and high above your head and then sitting up for real. 

"Aww, you don't want to stay over?" he says. 

"I - uh, no, I just gotta - "

"Oh my fucking god I'm _kidding_, go home, feed your cat, get the fuck out of here." 

You stand up still laughing at him, and begin collecting up your stuff, slip your glasses on, figure out where your underwear went. He watches you, following your movements, but he doesn't say anything; you are overwhelmingly relieved by the fact that he apparently doesn't feel the need to, is on the same page as you of: _welp, thanks_. Maybe someday you should probably actually talk about it, and maybe someday, you will. But it sure as hell isn't gonna be right now while you're still naked and trying to figure out how to make the smoothest, least stupid exit.

Briefs officially reacquired, most of the rest of your clothes lumped up in your arms, you lean over to plant one last kiss on his mouth, and he takes it for about two seconds before he starts whining "_ewwww_" like a kid getting kisses from his mom in front of his friends, slapping at your chest and laughing. 

"Okay, okay, god, I see how it is." 

"Put your pants on and I'll see you at work, you cretin."

You put your pants on. You get the fuck out of there. You see him at work. 

Maybe it'll happen again, but for now - _you good_.

> **WELL HOW 'BOUT THAT!!** Looks like your adventure with JEFF has come to an end. Nothing to worry about! Now you can go back to chapter 1 and start a new game, if you'd like. Or backtrack a couple steps and make some different choices, also if you'd like!! Thanks for playing GILL OR BE GILLED!


	17. Chapter 17

The problem is, now, that you stumble out of bed and into the shower (with your toothbrush, which is usually a thing that kind of grosses you out but this is a _dire emergency_) and you're still thinking about Jeff. And not even in a _thinking about you in the shower ;)_ kind of way. And you're still thinking about him as you throw on your least wrinkled button-up and your least crotch-stanky jeans. And you're still thinking about him as you feed Charlie, and give your glasses a perfunctory pre-work cleaning, and make sure all of your correct shit is in all of your correct pockets, and duck into your jacket and out your front door, on your way to being, it turns out, only marginally late for work. 

You could have gone home with him last night, probably, could have hooked up again, probably, but you didn't. And you think what that means is - maybe no, you couldn't have, after all. You think maybe it means - 

_Well, okay, Patrick,_ you bitch at yourself, _what it **means** is that you should probably talk to him like a goddamn communicative adult._ Listen, yourself argues, we've got anxiety. You've got a wide-net Friday standup that you just barely make it to in time, and you plant yourself staunchly across the room from Jeff, do your best not to even look at him, to focus on Tara and Russ. You avoid him on your way back to your desk, too, even though it doesn't really look like he's trying to interact with you anyway and your precautionary measures are probably pointless.

Fuck, shit, goddamnit. You've gotta tell him. You hunker down on some _mildly overdue but it's fine all your subscribers know you can't stick to a damn schedule anyway_ video edits you need to make, but it's still in the back of your mind, _he's_ still in the back of your mind, and you spend all. goddamn. day. trying to work yourself up to saying something. And then you're on the subway home, and then you're right back to being faceplanted in your bed as if today never even fucking happened and nothing has changed, at all.

"Fuck!" you yell, muffled significantly by your pillow. Your phone buzzes next to you and it nearly sends you through the _roof_ with how startled and keyed-up you are, but it's just Simone tagging you in her Instagram story. Jesus christ. Okay, you're gonna do it. You're just gonna - text him. _It's the coward's way out,_ you bitch at yourself, but yourself says, No, shut the fuck up, it's the most _casual_ way, and that's the best way to approach this, because - 

Because it's taken you all day to psych yourself up to say something, and that's because you know what it is you have to say, and it fucking _sucks_.

You type, _hey_. You type:

_>hey, there's never a not awkward way to do this, is there? but just gotta come clean, I'm pretty into you. in like a date-y way. I don't wanna make a federal affair about it but I got some feelios  
>jesus, okay, don't ever let me say "feelios" again. I just mean like I think it goes deeper than this casual stuff for me. and I know that it doesn't, uhhh for you. and it felt pretty assholish not to say something about it.  
>so this is probably something we should stop trying to do while we still have a chance to get out of it with it only becoming like 2% weird. fuck. this is dumb and I'm sorry._

You fire 'em all off back to back, just barely catching the typo where you hit the exponent-carrot instead of the percent symbol at the last second, and then jam your phone under your pillow so you don't look. Well, you make sure the volume is up before you do, just in case. As you anticipated, you don't get a response that is _any_ kind of prompt, and you force yourself to like. Go away. Do some dishes, or clean Charlie's litterbox, or some shit. Maybe you'll get your Switch out and finally grind past the Pokemon gym that's been giving you grief, though you're not especially invested now that you got the bong Weezing, which was basically the thing you were most excited about. Maybe you'll actually cook yourself dinner, on a Friday night, instead of just throwing the last of your frozen chicky nuggs on a bake tray and pretending that ketchup counts as a vegetable. 

It takes a couple hours, but you do eventually get a response. Your phone chimes, from the other room, and as you're bolting to go answer it it's already chiming again, two more times. You feel the sweet, sweet prickle of anxiety nausea creepin' up through your bones from the moment you glimpse the alerts:

_>Ok, well, thank you for being honest with me, thats a big move._  
_>Yeah this kind of shit is always so messy and weird and I can see what you mean about wanting different things, youre probably right._  
_>LMK if you ever want to hook up again though, because I DO really like you and think you are very cute and sexy!! Obviously!! But yeah I totally understand if you dont want to and why you need to bail here. Look at us go, being mature responsible adults processing our feelings in a healthy way. Proud of us tbh._

You laugh, a little, almost despite yourself. (_It's the anxiety,_ yourself reminds you.) Okay, but like, that could have gone so tremendously much worse. Fuck, Jeff's a really good guy, and if it's gotta end, you're really glad this is how it's ending. You are also, however, insanely glad that this is happening on a Friday evening after work and you don't have to look him in the eye again for a couple more days. 

You eat some chicken nuggets, even sharing one with Charlie, and you breathe just a little bit easier. 

January rolls over into February, and you knock out another Unraveled (some weird time travel bullshit, even you don't quite follow this one and you wrote a not-insignificant portion of the jokes), another Overboard (Potion Explosion, which Simone absolutely destroys you at, while Jeff cracks heavyhanded Harry Potter jokes and you and Karen casually flick marbles at each other), and an absolutely hellish piece about using hard magic systems as storytelling devices that you still aren't entirely satisfied with, even after Clayton worked his wizardry on it. Your Zombie-Gon t-shirt design takes off pretty well, and you work closer with Jeff and Julia and the rest of the merch-design team to keep things running smoothly. 

You only stare at Jeff's hands, and the way they wield his stylus with clipped, practiced ease, like, a little bit. It is, as predicted, only about two-percent awkward. Eventually, you stop _Thinking About Him_, tee-em, at all.

> **WELP, THAT'S THAT!!** Looks like your adventure with JEFF has come to an end. C'est la vie! Now, if you like, you can return to chapter 1 and start a new game, or you can always backtrack a couple steps and make different choices! Thanks for playing GILL OR BE GILLED!


	18. Chapter 18

It's March, and it's like, _thinking_ about maybe not being so grit-nasty-cold out, sometime soon, but it's not really actually getting any better yet. You're still miserable any time you have to commute in it, scuffing around outside in the cold that's still bitter but now also, like, _wet_ \- even Maine was better than this, at least you knew what you were getting into, and snow actually stayed _snow_ for more than forty-five minutes - and it makes it borderline impossible to get out of bed most mornings, especially with Charles sleeping curled up against the curve of your spine for cuddle-warmth. You roll into the office super-late, even for you, more often than not. 

Like a universal constant, Brian does, too. It's fun to catch him in the elevator, sometimes, the two of you sharing knowing smiles as you try to worm out of your coats while still holding your paper cups of coffee. 

"Patrick Gill and Brian Gilbert got into work late," you quip in a fake, deep-pitched announcer voice, and it gets a breathy chuckle out of him, sends him off vocalizing the G&G theme music on a little _doop-boop_ for just a beat or two. His face is flushed red from the cold outside, and the sudden transition to toasty-heated inside, and oh, on instinct you reach out and wordlessly offer to hold his coffee for him so he can yank his gloves off, too. He presses the cup into your hand just as automatically.

And oh, it's - there's been plenty of time for what happened with Jeff to cool off and slip away, now. Hasn't there?

You spend all week thinking about it. Gill and Gilbert in the elevator. Directing February's Unraveled together, working through all those _shipping_ conversations in every permutation. Singing-yelling Love Shack with him in Clayton's apartment, apparently to such a volume that the neighbors complained, with his arm somehow finding its way to a position draped over your shoulders. God, you thought about it a lot right then on the night, too, didn't you. You were taken in by Jeff's brazen _ass-eating_ t-shirt and the hot, electric buzz of his hands on your skin, but Brian was - right there, warm and inviting, practically beckoning you in. 

Jenna drags the four of you out to lunch, you-her-Simone-Brian - she's heard the very faintest, tentative, _softest_ whisperings that Tara might _finally_ greenlight a continuation of your Cyberpunk adventure for Q2, and she's so terrified of jinxing it that she doesn't even want to talk about it in the office. You can't say you blame her. You miss Burger Chainz _somethin' fierce._ You also - very suddenly, oh _god_ \- are struck with the mental image of Brian in that shimmery silver leotard, adding itself to the pile of Thoughts™ you've already been having. Oh, oh shit. 

"Okay, so I think I have enough campaign story kind of half-assed plotted out that we could do three more full sessions if they let us," Jenna confides. "Honestly - if they _do_ end up giving us a hard no, I might just run it for y'all just for fun, off-camera. I'm kind of stupidly in love with a couple of the NPCs, I really want to see how they interact with - Dasha especially, really - "

"Go on," Simone drawls, leaning over her noodle bowl to give Jenna the eye. Jenna laughs, and it gets all four of you smiling. 

"Okay, but before we move forward, if-slash-when, I do think we need to hash out kind of a better more concrete homebrew for some of the Vang0 stuff, just so I know what he's doing."

"Vang0 Bang0 doesn't even know what Vang0 is doing," Brian chuckles. 

"Vang0 Bang0 is doing _Burger Chainz_, if the internet is to be believed," says Simone. Jenna _cackles_, and Brian hangs his head a little, defeated, blushing, grinning, oh shit, oh god. You hope that - you catch yourself staring, and you hope that no one else does, hope no one else realizes you just fully weren't saying anything at all, before you can manage to jerk back up to pay better attention to Jenna as she walks you guys through a few more details. 

The two of them are a few steps ahead of you on the sidewalk heading back to work. They seem to thrive a lot more than you or Brian does in this weather; Simone looks fucking _great_ in coats. Brian wears the pitiful grumpy scowl of a man born and raised below the Mason-Dixon line, where winter's usually much less of a _thing_ by the time March rolls around. He's got his hands stuffed in his pockets, and so do you, but you - you dare to - remove one hand, loop your arm through his, and then sink it back in, keeping the two of you linked together.

"Why hello there, Pat Gill," he says. "To what do I owe the honor?" 

"You looked fucking miserable, I thought I could add an element of whimsy."

"Ugh, now that Aquarius season is over, I'm ready for winter to be done, please."

"No kidding." 

You walk a few strides like this, completely unbothered. Jenna and Simone are laughing at something they noticed in a storefront across the street and they don't even notice you. 

Finally, you just - it just comes out of you.

"Brian do you want to maybe," you start; you don't have an end to that one, not sure what _you_ even want to maybe, so you switch gears. "At Clayton's, at the holiday party. I thought maybe we were - I didn't know if you wanted to, sometime, we could - "

Brian unlinks his arm from yours - not _abruptly_, that's a strong word for it, but with an air of certainty, moving his hand to rest firmly on your shoulder, bringing you both to a halt on the sidewalk for just a moment. "Pat, I'm gonna stop you right there, gonna save you from yourself, the answer's no."

Oh. "Oh," you say, a little stupidly. "Okay. Um, but - "

"Look, there was a moment there," he admits. "And don't get me wrong, you're cute as hell. But homie, ya blew it." Brian's being cute, jokey, but there's a current of serious candidness at its core that makes you feel just like, a _little_ bit shitty. "I'm not gonna be your sloppy seconds just because your thing with Jeff didn't pan out. Oh, yeah dude, you guys were _not_ slick about that."

"You are dragging me just like, unnecessarily hard right now." 

"It's for your own good, Patrick!" he says with a grin. "I like you a lot, as like, my coworker and my friend and my fellow relatively-non-problematic dude cohort. And I totes respect your casual office hookup energies. I'd just rather, like, get out ahead of it, get it all on the table and then right back off the table as efficiently as possible before it gets too weird. Okay?"

He starts walking again, tentative, looking at you with this faint apologetic-expectant-hopeful grimace, and you...fall in step next to him, moving slowly at first but eventually hitting your stride, as the two of you catch back up with the women ahead. You don't say anything just yet, which you know is killing him a little, leaving him hanging like that, but - well, that kind of stung, so maybe he deserves it, just for a minute or two more. You have to take your precious time, anyway, taking all those sweet details you've been dreaming of all week, the karaoke, the Vang0 costume, the elevator, the G 'n' G seggo where you read his palm, and filing them away into some mental lockbox of yours, to be opened again only in times of extreme desperation or emergency. You gotta recalibrate to all the shit he's saying, because ultimately, it _does_ make a hell of a lot of sense. You can see exactly where he's coming from, and if that's how he feels about it, then it'd probably be a terrible idea to try to take it anywhere else in the first place, anyway. But that doesn't mean your ears aren't still ringing with how hard he just fucking _roasted_ you, oh my god. 

Well. Or maybe that's just the nasty March weather, still pissing you both off. 

In the elevator back up to the office, Simone slips into the cadence of her Dasha character voice, and says, "Ugh, would one of you be a _dear_ and hold my leftovers for me while I get out of this coat?"

"Well I surely would be happy ta do so," Burger offers, and you hold your hand out, letting her press her little to-go box into it.

Brian smiles at you, a very specific smile that's about way more than just the food. You smile back, matching it perfectly. You're good.

Jenna notices the two of you being weird and Brian just flashes her his stupid V-B hand sign as a distraction.

> **NICE TRY!!** Your adventure is now over. Start a new adventure by going back to chapter 1! Or you can always just back up a few steps, if you'd like to make different choices. :) Thanks for playing GILL OR BE GILLED!


	19. Chapter 19

Winter always feels lousy, because the sun's only up for the hours that you're inside a building and whenever it decides it's gonna snow it all immediately turns to shit that you still have to walk through within like, forty-five minutes. Winter _also_ always feels lousy because it's exactly when you were struggling through the worst of it at the end of your last relationship. You're ninety-nine percent okay with it now, your life is decent and you love your cat and you've got a kickass therapist, but yeesh, seasonal affective disorder is real AF. So it highkey sucks even more ass that this thing with Jeff is fizzling out here in the wet asscrack of February, too. Insult to injury, or whatever.

You think you're doing a pretty good job of not being too obnoxiously mopey, though. Everyone seems to be treating you like normal, even Jeff, which is a blessing, because back-to-normal is all you really wanna be. No one says anything at the office.

Until - oh - one person says something at the office.

Clayton asked you to give him a hand with moving a couple media carts between production rooms, he's having a bad week with his bad legs, and as you guys are wheelin' around he just casually asks, "Everything's okay with you, right?" 

"Uh, yeah," you answer, maybe a little too quickly. "I mean, it's February, dude, shit sucks. Just kind of wanna - see the sun again before I go fucking insane."

"Oh god, for real," he agrees. He backs through the door, pulls the cart with him, and you push from the other side. Once you're both in, he says, "But for real though, you're like - good? With work, with - with Jeff?"

You sigh and roll your eyes a little, and shove your hand back through your hair, and then lean against the cart now that the wheels are locked, and finally, you say, "There's - there's no 'with Jeff,' it turns out."

"Oh. Gotcha. Uh. Well, just let me know, if - "

"If I wanna come get blazed on your fire escape?" you finish for him, grinning a little.

He smiles back, and it's - gosh, just real wide and soft and tender-genuine, huh. "Oh, absolutely. Mi ganja es su ganja."

"Clayton, my good man, that may be the nicest thing anyone's ever said to me." 

He laughs, you laugh, and just like that, you feel - some door, some tiny little shut latch somewhere inside of you that you'd nearly forgotten about, swing back open. 

Because if you think about it - why else would that moment, that memory of being still with him in the crisp cold at the otherwise wild and frankly claustrophobic party, be the first thing that jumped right out in your mind, right out of your mouth? There's some funky cocktail of - loneliness, of what-ifs, of quiet beats set apart from the real world, that starts spilling back into you, through the next few days at work and even more over the weekend. You find yourself, at some stupidly late hour of Sunday night, sprawled on your stomach in bed, Charles seated just fully across your ass, holding your phone two inches from your nose and scrubbing through the Finding Nemo episode of We Fought A Zoo in an incognito window. You miss when he would get on camera more often, you think. You like watching him laugh. 

You roll onto your back and clutch your phone to your chest like a fucking giddy teen. You totally forgot that Charlie was there, and he gives a soft _yow!_ in protest and digs his claws in through your pajama pants before springing clumsily away, and okay, fucking ow. 

You move swiftly first thing on Monday morning (okay, nine-fifty on Monday morning, which is when you make it to the office). Just right the fuck into it, before you can second-guess yourself: 

"Hey Clay," you singsong. "Stop me if I'm. But uh. At your party - well, the party, that you sort of, assumed custody of - "

"Right, right - "

"Something was there," you offer, trying to hold certainty in it while still being like, tentative, trying not to fully assume, just in case.

"Look, you Venmo'd me for a new washcloth and I was _really_ just hoping we weren't gonna talk about - "

"Between me and _you_," you clarify, but he - oh. He's smiling. He was joking. He knew what you meant - 

"I knew what you meant," he says. "Ummm, yeah, there was a - Yeah." God, his smile goes all the way to his eyes. His hand reaches out slowly, carefully, across the space between the two of you, to brush into your own, to hold it just a second before dropping it. It feels like - Hershey kisses wrappers, fumbling on the fire escape. "Could've gone somewhere. But you and Jeff were - doing what you were doing, y'know."

Fuck, please don't let that be it. Please don't let this be a chance you _completely_ blew. "I know," you admit, glancing away, fucking - mad at yourself, more than anything. "I just - that didn't. Work out so hot. I'm kind of - I think it turns out I'm kind of dogshit at the _casual_ thing."

"I know," says Clayton, and the way he says it - that cool, soft clarity, the way he _means_ it, _god_ \- makes you stop staring awkwardly into the middle distance just past his shoulder, makes you look back _up_ and really catch him in the eye like a normal, respectful human being, and fuck. "I know," he says again. "I'm exactly the same way." 

You reach out, to the arm of his desk chair, take _his_ hand, this time, and hold it, longer, firmer. "It's - it's not weird? It's not too soon after this - this other stuff, this Jeff stuff, I promise you I'm not just - "

"No no no, it's okay," says Clayton, shaking his head a little. "I could tell, especially at the video shoots, it was very - " He pauses, shakes his head a little more, like he's working out how to say - "You were just trying to like, do what Jeff wanted you to, what he wanted from the whole thing. You were really respecting his wishes and it was so incredibly sweet." He strokes his thumb over the back of your hand, and it's soft and _maddeningly_ good, _fuck_. "But I think you guys were just looking for different things. I think uh - I think you and me might be looking for. The same thing." It's hard to tell through his beard, but you think maybe he's blushing, just a little. "Or at least much more similar things."

God, yeah. _Yeah_. Clayton is a fucking genius at this - he just nailed your entire shit on the head in like, three sentences, in a way that _you_ weren't even really understanding and it was _your entire shit_ in the first place. It makes you wanna - yell, burst out laughing not in a humorous way but just in like a joyous way, makes you wanna hug him close and _kiss_ him and oh god okay but like not right in the middle of the office though, get it together, Patrick. You settle for squeezing his hand a time or two more before releasing it, and just - staring at his face, at his smile, a little longer, fully _knowing_ that you're grinning like an insane person and not giving a shit. Giving way more of a shit about - god, if you had just followed up on this in the first place - Instead of getting so distracted by how stupidly sexy and rowdy and _obvious_ Jeff was being, if you had just - You and Clayton could have been doing this other amazing thing the _whole time. God_ you are a dumbass. 

"Yeah," you say, dumbassedly. "I just - fuck, thank you, this is incredibly good actually and I think I really want to do. This? Do - something? Whatever this... Is." You gesture vaguely between the two of you. He gets it. You know he does.

This is the moment where his sweet smile does fade just a tiny, tiny bit, though, and you try not to immediately panic, let him speak his piece. "Okay, well, I really hope you do, though. I'm - serious. I don't want to start some casual, temporary, whatever, kind of thing. I _really_ like you, Pat, I think you're so super sweet, and I really think we're on the same page here but I, like - I need you to be sure. You're sure?" 

You think about it for a beat or two, because - okay, because the Jeff situation is only just now kind of Over with a capital O, even though it was only kind of tentatively a _thing_ in the first place, never quite found its footing. Your love life's Recent Browser History is kind of a mess, and it's pretty nerve-wracking to move so swiftly to the next phase. But Clayton's right - y'all _are_ on the same page, much more than you ever could have realized until this exact conversation, and it's kind of blowing your mind. You really, really want to do this.

"I'm sure," you tell him, and the smile he gives you confirms it for you, a hundred percent.

Now, you resolve to yourself, you just have to prove it to _him_. 

So what's your gameplan for that look like, exactly?

> PULL OUT ALL THE STOPS! MAKE BIG WAVES. --> PROCEED TO [CHAPTER 20](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21918814/chapters/52317235).  
A SOFT TOUCH, JUST A SLOW AND STEADY TRICKLE. --> PROCEED TO [CHAPTER 21](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21918814/chapters/52317295).


	20. Chapter 20

Fuck yeah, you are gonna do this _right_.

You let him get back to his work, and you need to get even _started_ on yours, gross, but for the rest of the day you're already turning all the little gears of it over in your mind, trying to get your head wrapped around it as solidly as possible. You only send him a couple messages throughout the day, which are mostly just appending _:)_ to things you already needed to message him about, shooting schedules, casting February's Overboard, and him also appending _:)_ when he replies. And also a couple of times you just sending _:)_ by itself and him replying _:)_ back. God, you can't stop _smiling_. 

You adjust your mental schedule to his _immediately_. Clayton almost always gets into the office earlier than you do, as does nearly everyone but Brian, but he's actually a little bit of a genuine _morning_ person, which means by the time you're rolling in, it's the perfect moment for him to be taking his second coffee of the day. 

Shit, you don't actually know how he takes his coffee, and you're already standing in line at Dunkin. You text him immediately - 

_>fuck dude I d_

\--Dude? Do you call him 'dude' if you guys are - ? It seems wrong, somehow. You snort a little laugh to yourself and delete. 

_>fuck, babe, I_

Oh, shit. Okay, you just typed that so _automatically_; you say it to yourself in your head, a couple of times, can imagine so easily saying it out loud. You bite your lip, shift from foot to foot a little, move up one toward the register. Filing that one away, but filing it real close to the front. 

_>fuck clay I can't believe i've known you for like almost four years and i don't actually know how you take your coffee? i'm a dumbass??_

_>Lol you're fine! 2 sugars and just a splash of something nondairy please, darker roast is better but I'm not that picky :)  
>:)_

You bring him his second coffee, Thursday morning. And every morning. He takes a work-from-home later next week and forgets to mention it, and you're suddenly standing there in the bullpen holding two coffees like a clown, and you're not even mad about it. You just pawn the other one off on Nicole, who dumps like a fuckton of extra sugar in it and shrugs, and drift back to your own work station. Clayton says he'll pay you back - he always says it, even when he does actually get to _drink_ the coffee - but you refuse, wave him off, it's not like you're buying some catastrophic seven dollar sparkly unicorn frappuccino monstrosity or whatever. It's coffee. It's literally the least you could do. 

You send each other dumb memes, like, all the time at work now. You're way more prolific, you admit - you just like to hear him laughing, from his spot a few monitors down. Mostly just soft breathy exhalations but enough that you can picture the smile that comes with it. His returns are sparse, but always flawlessly executed, and your laugh is _loud_ because he gets you _so good_. Jeff and Tara are walking past, once, right when he zings ya, and Tara just cocks an eyebrow, but Jeff's look is totally knowing - no trouble seeing right through you. Color floods across your face, and you feel it instantly, an uncomfortable warmth but with a sensation on its back that feels like the sting of bitter cold. You put on a sheepish smile and just kind of put your head down and shrug. 

He comes over, of course, watches movies with you, eats takeout with you, meets Charles. (Charles _loves_ Clayton, which makes your heart soar; you start sending him lil Charliegrams sometimes, usually late at night because that's when you're thinking about it, even though you know he's in bed way before you and won't see it till the morning. Something about that makes it kind of more fun, almost.) You jump to his aid on work projects more, gladly volunteering for any assignment where he needs extra hands, eagerly looking forward to all the stuff you already do together, Overboard shoots, Unraveled filming. Anything that keeps you in his orbit. You steal a scarf from him one night when you're leaving his place and start wearing it all the time now, even though you've never really been a _scarf_ kind of dude before. 

You kiss him, of course. Never at work, but on your sofa, or against his kitchen counter, holding his face close to yours with both your hands, the brush of his beard in your palms, his hands soft and assured at your waist. You give him everything you've got, because he's _amazing_, and you're so high on all this shit he's letting you do, this thing you're doing together. Clayton kisses like a dream, too, confident, detail-oriented, thorough without being pushy or weird. It makes you wanna - work _so_ hard, become a fucking S-rank expert level kisser, to be even half as good back to him, to give him even a fraction of what he deserves.

He takes your wrist in his hand, tugs it down off his face and sets it firmly in your own lap. "Hey, hey, slow down," he says, his voice spun-sugar-soft. "I'm not, like, racing you."

You sway a little, lightheaded from the good shit, and smile back at him. "Uhh, well, can't exactly pilot this jaeger myself, so you gotta - " You rock your mouth back to his, closer, more, but he laughs just a little and ducks his head and cuts you off again.

"I'm serious," he says. "You're great, everything is - cool, but I have never seen you like this."

"Like what?" you ask, because now you're just kind of confused.

Clayton sighs. "Like - all wild about just everything I'm about, all the time," he says. "I dunno, it just feels like you're really throwing your whole damn self into this thing _really_ hard. Are you - good?"

You stare at his sweet face, his kiss-red mouth, his kind eyes, searching for - meaning, understanding, what in the goddamnit he is _talking_ about. You're just all in, for him. You love to buy him coffee and wear his scarf and edit his videos and kiss the thin skin of his wrist right above his pulse point and ohh, oh god, your eyes slide off his face and into the middle distance just above his shoulder because it's been not even a month and you are - 

A crazy person - 

Who still feels a cold, footsteps-on-your-grave shudder when Jeff sees you with Clayton. 

"I am - not good," you say, slowly, and your gaze returns to him, slowly, and you roll some words around in your mouth and then say them out loud: "I think I'm still kind of into Jeff."

His face falls, just a fraction, and your heart _breaks_. Fuck, _fuck_. But you know it would just be worse just so much _fucking_ worse not to be honest with him, and you can tell - you're in tune enough with him, after these last few weeks of being a crazy person - that he knows it, too. He knows you cannot and should not lie about the way you've just been - blotting out everything else that's been going on with you with _Clayton! :)_ and refusing to process the way shit with Jeff collapsed, even though you see Jeff almost every day. And now you're going to have to see _Clayton_ almost every day and this is the worst and winter is _lousy_ and everything is _terrible_ and he just says - 

"Okay," he says, finally, so fucking magnanimously. "I was - yeah I did worry about that, a little. It's. Um, I understand."

"Clayton - I am so _fucking_ sorry." 

"No, no, I get it," he says. "I knew it was kind of - it was gonna be kind of a weird move, after the party, and everything." He raises his hand up to your face, and with a fucking soul-destroying amount of tenderness he brushes your hair back behind your ear, and you either are or are _not_ going to fucking _cry_ but you wish your goddamn eyeballs would make up their mind about it. He places a soft, frictionless kiss onto your mouth, even though it's still hanging open like an idiot fish just a little bit. "I really like you, Pat. And I know you really like me."

"I _do_," you lament, insistent, strangled.

"I know. But I can't - this isn't gonna be good for either of us while you're still kind of just - rebounding, or whatever this is. Especially not for, uh, _me_. Not - not right now." He sits back, a little further away from you, and moves to get up off the couch. "I um, I think I'm gonna go. Thank you - this is - I will, see you, at work." 

God, you will fucking see him at work, won't you.

You don't say anything as he sort of - collects himself, gets up to head out. He scritches Charlie on the head a little as he walks by, and he puts his shoes back on over at the entryway, and he's halfway into his coat when you finally manage to get up and meet him there. 

You wrap your arms around his whole body and kiss him, just the once, as hard as you can stand to do it, holding him close and breathing in his air, pressing yourself to his cool, smooth skin.

You hand him his scarf back, before he goes.

> **OH NO!!** Looks like your adventure has ended. If you made yourself sad with this one, like I did writing it, you can start a new adventure by going back to chapter 1! Or you can always just back up a step or two, if you'd like to make different choices. :) Thanks for playing GILL OR BE GILLED!


	21. Chapter 21

You plant your hand over his on the arm of his chair, just one more time. "I'm sure," you say again, smiling, hoping it goes all the way to your eyes, like his does. Fucking gorgeous. And on that note, you turn and slip out of his space, looking for a standing desk to set up shop for the day. You've suddenly got just, some _energy_ in your legs, that you can't quite seem to shake. 

Clayton saw right through you, really dropped a bomb, and it's _good_ but it's given you just a whole hell of a lot to think about. One thing's for certain, though: The way you fucked this up with Jeff was by trying too hard, laying it on too thick, overwhelming him. You resolve to absolutely _not_ fuckin' do that with Clayton. You're not gonna make the same mistake twice. So yeah, you've got a lot to think about, and you maybe do...lowkey think about him all day - the cool touch of his hand, the gentle timbre of his voice, wow, _wow_ \- but you swallow down any urge you might get to make a big deal out of it. At most, the messages you already need to send him about work stuff now just end with _:)_ in a much more pointed way than they ever have before.

_>hey, saw you made some changes to that shooting schedule, can you check with Karen that she's available after 4 on that day though? :)_

_>Oh shit yeah my bad lol _  
_>Forgot she was in that one_  
_>:)_

And that's all. And that's _enough_, geez, to bring a stupid sappy smile to your face, more often than not. Keeps that soft, antsy juice running through you - anticipation, but like, a kind that feels _good_, like you're on the hook for something that's just gonna rule that much harder later. You're not sure what you thought starting something with Clayton would be like, but you don't think it was like this. 

...And not to like, harp on shit that doesn't really bother you anymore, but it _is_ still real fresh in your backlog. But like. With Jeff, it always kind of felt like you were taking it slow by accident. You weren't doing anything, he wasn't doing anything, and you didn't really know how to move it forward without just totally fucking putting your foot in it (oh no, oh jesus, but unbidden to your brain comes a meme Simone sent you about something entirely unrelated once that just said _and so, they were both bottoms_ and that's absolutely not what it was, that cannot be what it was, but also you sure are thinking about it right now, aren't you). You were holding back just like, by default. But with Clayton... Now it kind of feels like you're taking it slow on _purpose_. Clayton's not doing much, but he's not doing _nothing_, still leaves sweet Instagram comments on stories you post of Charlie, goes out of his way to compliment your new stuff that's in the works for some merch item designs. (Brushes his hand, shit, across the whole breadth of your shoulders, as he steps softly by on his way to the coffee maker, like he's touching casually but that is _not_ a casual touch, and your hand seizes up on your computer mouse a little and you jump six minutes forward into the footage and forget where you were, lose your place, regret literally nothing.) He's very deliberately setting a pace for the two of you, seems to enjoy it or at least not mind it, and it emboldens you to respond in kind - to intentionally send cute Charlie pics to just him, or to bring him a packet of Doritos appropos of nothing when it's late-afternoon and your energy is flagging but you're both under deadlines and can't cut out anytime soon. 

"I like you," you say, unprovoked. 

He smiles at your smile. At you. "I like you too." 

And oh - he _likes_ you.

You've been on set with him for an hour and you still have probably another hour to go, although you've booked the room for three and you won't be surprised if you run into that, too. He's behind the camera, you're in front of it, and the script is starting to jumble in your mouth, because you have to do so many quick little bits here, suddenly, because of how this part is gonna get edited, and you've never been the _best_ at Japanese pronunciation but all of these Square Enix developer names are turning into a fucking tongue twister.

You crack with laughter, a little hysterical, and sink your hand into your hair. "Jeeesus christ, did I just say 'Fuck-amori'? Clayton, Clay, you gotta make sure you cut anything that accidentally turns into a fuck-word, ho-lee shit. Can, can we start back over at - oh. Uh, hey."

Clayton has slipped out from behind the monitor and is moving toward you. It's just the two of you in the room, you got the visual gag you needed Jenna for already and she's long gone, and Clayton strides toward you, not - not _predatory_, nothing nearly as aggressive as that, but just with an unwavering certainty that feels so beautifully at odds with your own frantic goofs. He doesn't say anything, just crowds into your space and is now very deliberately wrapping his hands, almost _delicately_, around your waist, low at the band of your jeans.

"H-hi," you say, your voice hitching a little. Oh, wow, uh, okay.

"Hi," he says, smiling. "You wanna maybe take a break and calm down? We've got plenty of time, we're in here till noon." 

"Sounds, sounds good," you say. You nod your head, redundantly. And then you add, "Um, kinda hard to be calm, though, when you - "

He kisses you, still steering with his hands, swaying your body closer to his. You've like - this isn't the first time you've kissed him, it's been a few weeks and you've both been super on board from the get-go so it seemed weird to like, _not_, but there's something about this one that feels. New. Fresh. _Good_. You let your arms drift their way over his shoulders and find space for themselves there, tugging him even closer and just holding there, falling into the rhythm he's setting for your bodies, for your mouths. His tongue traces the seam of your lips and you open up for it immediately and let him in. He usually runs a couple degrees cooler than you do, but he is _hot_ here, always, and he kisses into you like. Like he _wants_ you. The sweet, blistering passes of his tongue sync up expertly with the way his thumbs begin stroking into your hipbones, confident, repetitive. You don't - make a _noise_, per se, but there's a loud, damp exhale that presses out of you, and you feel the way it makes him smile.

He moves down, away from your mouth and to your neck, and okay _that_ one is new and you _do_ make a noise. "Oh," you gasp, stupidly, and it sounds way too loud in the partially-soundproofed studio, but it's like, okay, you have never uh. _Made out with_. Someone with this much beard before? It's about what you expected, you figure, you just weren't expecting that it was gonna _do_ this much for you, feel like you can feel him everywhere, the soft brush-scrape of him on your neck and collarbone and he's already such an incredibly good kisser and now you are very abruptly, unbidden, intrusively, imagining what the burn of that would feel like on the pale insides of your _thighs_ and you are ohhh, fuck, for real making a noise now, _"ohhh"_ again but longer and louder and way more embarrassingly horny. He squeezes at your hips again, firmer, hotter, tugs you more insistently against him. You feel yourself losing your grip on your resolve, on your like - promise to yourself not to get a boner at work, not through all the weird horny shit y'all have done on camera and not through the whole thing with Jeff and not now, but like - _but like_ \- 

Clayton pulls back up off your neck, kisses sweet at your mouth just once more, and absolutely does not let go of your hipbones, although he puts a little distance between his body and yours again. You try to focus up, clear through the daze he's put you in, and when you do you see his face, smiling, oh-so-innocent like he hasn't just wandered in and wrecked your shop in two moves like this is _Untitled Clayton Game_. 

And of course he's a mind-reader, too: "Don't worry," he says sweetly. "We've been shooting mids like normal, the bottom half of you doesn't ever need to be on camera." He steps away, walks back to the camera, leaves you swaying subconsciously after him, sighing, _groaning_. Stringing you along, but in the best possible _fucking_ way. On the hook for something that's gonna rule.

Not sure what you thought starting something with Clayton would be like.

No _idea_ it'd be like this.

"Okay, rolling...!"

> **SMOOTH MOVES!!** Looks like you overcame your nosedive with JEFF to really make a go of it with CLAYTON instead. Love finds a way! Now, if you want to start a new game, head back to Chapter 1; or, feel free to back up a few moves and explore other options. :) Thanks for playing GILL OR BE GILLED!


	22. Chapter 22

The elevator dings open, spitting you out into the Polygon offices. You've been staring at the little numbers counting you down, so you're ready for it, braced for impact, taking a deep, fortifying breath right as they slide apart, and on your exhale, scan around for Brian.

You don't see him. Fuck, that's anticlimactic.

You see Simone, and Petrana, and Jeff, and you swap waves and _hey welcome backs_ with each of them in turn as you trudge over to your work station. You try not to let the wind fall out of your sails too hard, after all the psyching up you just had to do for yourself - which, upon literally four seconds of self-reflection, seems pretty stupid and melodramatic now that you think about it. It's not like you are gonna dare let anything that goes down between the two of you here, in the office in front of everyone, turn into some grand ordeal of - of _romance_, or some shit. It's just that - 

It's just that. That you've been _not thinking about it_ so hard that it's twisted around recursively to the point where you are absolutely, totally thinking about it. About _him_, about Brian David Gilbert, your coworker, yeah, who you hooked up with, not _at_ a party but adjacent to a party, but also your friend, and frequently your partner in crime, who incorporated you into his _dream ballet_, and who's carried you through the subway to Times Square, and stuck weird shit to your skin on multiple occasions - god, so much of Gill and Gilbert really was just y'all sticking stuff to each other, huh - god, you remember, at the party, the _Gill and Gilbert_ of it all. Relaxing into something easy. If that's where his head is at, and _this_ is where _your_ head is at, then that's just an awful lot to fucking think about, isn't it. And it'd be a lot easier to think through, you figure, if you could. Well. Bounce ideas off one another. Like good co-conspirators do. 

And also you just really, really want to see him again, after the stress-inducing mess of the holidays, two weeks apart.

Oh shit, there he is.

He's swinging out of a further-back meeting room, sassing back to - Tara? What's he already meeting with Tara about? - and she just laughs, shakes her head, and claps him on the shoulder, setting him free. She returns to her office, and Brian drifts loose into the bullpen, smiling a little sheepishly and nodding to himself, regrouping, casting his gaze around, and - and he sees _you_, and his smile just _blooms_, and fuck this you are already up and striding toward him. He moves, too, but not quite as fast and his legs are shorter, and you meet him about two-thirds of the way there. God, look at him - he's wearing some insanely touchable-looking green sweater, you figure it's gotta be Christmas-new, and he shifts his weight and stares at you and you sweep your hair back and stare at him, and he's _gorgeous_, and - 

And oh fuck, you got all the way here without really thinking about what you were going to actually _say_, once you were face to face with him again. You feel like your brain is really three little brains in a trenchcoat, and they're all running at different speeds, trying to process things at different rates, in different directions.

He must see you freeze up behind your glasses, because he takes pity on you, softballs you a sweet, "Hey, Pat Gill," with his smile all the way up into his eyes. And one of the little brains surges to the forefront, takes charge, and it may not make the _best_ decisions, but at least you're committing to _something_, and so you sink your hands into the plush of his sweater, sliding around his waist, and pull him into a big, tight, probably-not-passably-platonic hug, right there in the middle of the office, breathing in the scent of him at his neck, his hair, plastering your bodies together chest-to-knee. He resists absolutely _not at all_, curls his arms up and around your back, your shoulders, even _sways_ a little bit with it, like, like not a swoon, but not _not_ a swoon, you're not even sure you fully could define what a swoon is but you can like, feel the flavor of one, in this hug, this fucking _embrace_ between you and warm, soft, beautiful 2020 Brian. 

"Hey," you murmur back, finally, stroking your thumb into his side. "Uh, happy new year. W-welcome back."

"Same to you," he sighs. "Gosh, I just - this is so - I _missed_ you." You can feel his heartbeat thudding up against your own. "I was really, really looking forward to seeing you again."

"Me too," you breathe out. "Feels - real good."

"Yeah. Yeah."

From somewhere at the other end of the office, somebody starts up a slow clap, and you stay buried into him but you feel your face turn just a whole-ass different color as your throat bottoms out all the way to your toes. 

"God, it would be cool if any of our coworkers had even a fucking modicum of chill, huh."

"I dunno," he says, "I think Clayton can hang."

Even through your mortification, you snort a little laugh into his hair, and over your shoulder you fire off a middle finger to whoever is watching, _perverts_. (The laugh you get back is confirmation; of course it was Jeff.) Slowly, you extricate yourself from Brian, stand a very respectable few inches apart from him, still holding his be-sweatered waist. It's hard to make your hands let go, okay, it's _super_ soft.

"Not here?" you say. 

"Not here, at all," he agrees. "We could - can I take you to lunch?"

"Wanna go to that pho place?"

"_Phuuuuh_-ck yes I do," he says, and he winks, and you laugh again, and then he slips away back to his desk, keeping his eyes on you until the last possible minute, until you're forced to go sit back down, too, the phantom sensation of his warm sweater still tingling on your palms. 

You _float_ through your morning. Your whole torso feels filled with bright puffs of air, throbbing here and there and making your body kind of weightless, but your limbs kind of heavy, and it's some weird shit but - it's _good_, you know that what it means is fucking good as hell, and the fact that you have to tamp that down into some other separate place and go back to working for a couple of hours is only mitigated by the knowledge that after that couple of hours, you have a - a _date_. And also that Brian is still kind of coyly shooting you glances from his own computer every few minutes and smiling, and you're smiling, and Simone is smiling because she's laughing at you, and fuck, fuck, okay, you really gotta focus on this project you got started or you're never gonna make it. You clip out a chunk or two of this massive wall of footage you've been scrolling through - who knows if you'll use it, but better than having to find it all again; you delete a couple more of your insane backlog of accumulated-over-the-holiday emails; you answer a message Jeff sends you, about _merch stuff_, and you completely ignore the seven suggestive emojis he's appended to the end of it, because you're a goddamn professional. You make it to approximately 11:30, and yeah, you just got here a little less than two hours ago, but no one's really giving a shit about these couple days before the weekend, all of your real Start Of The Year Bullshit isn't going down till Monday, and you think it's honestly commendable that you even bothered to roll in here and do anything in the first place. You shove up from your desk and sidle around to Brian's. He's just dicking around on the Nintendo wiki, anyway. In no time you're halfway down the block, shoulder-to-shoulder in the cold.

"Saw Jeff looped you into the stuff for the merch," Brian says, uber-casually, as you walk. 

"Oh, yeah! I think uh, think I'm gonna do some art stuff for that. People like, potentially paying money for shit I drew is, not gonna lie, blowing my mind a little."

"You deserve it!" he says brightly. "You're really good. That fake Dr. Seuss thing you did for the Fire Emblem video, that fuckin' _gets_ me, still." 

"Thanks, m-man," you say. You nearly say something other than _man_. You figure you should probably wait till after you, like, actually talk about this. _This_.

He's pushing the door open to the pho joint and holding for you as he says, "Well, I hope there's enough Producer Pat to go around, between merch squad and the way we're gonna pick Gill and Gilbert back up."

You lurch to a stop for a second, which he - clearly anticipated, the way he's also stopped, waiting for you, his smile smug and his eyes glittering. Oh my god, "Is that what you were talking to Tara about?" you say, as your brain comes back online, and you can finish following him up to the counter.

He nods. "She gave it a soft 'no,' which from her is basically a super-chill maybe," he confirms, and holy shit, he's not wrong. That's, uh, promising. "She did say she didn't wanna hear anything more about it unless it was coming from both of us, so, here's me, saying, we gotta, y'know. Coordinate. Bring our A-game." He winks. 

"Li'l bit of a workin' lunch, then," you say.

"Just a little bit," he answers, and his smile is so loaded that the restraint you exercise in not just kissing him right _then_ should earn you a fucking medal, or something.

You sit down at a tiny table, him on the booth-side and you on the chair-side, and slurp some dope-ass hot soup, and hash out some _Gee 'n' Gee, baybee_. You talk time slots, and Twitch vs YouTube, and how to really lean into its postmortem cult following as a way to get Tara back on your side. He suggests having more third-seater guests, which you could definitely get into, especially with all the relatively new perma-hires on staff who don't usually pop up in videos. You notice, kind of two-thirds of the way through, that your hand has drifted out to hold his hand on the surface of the table, and he hasn't said anything, just calmly accepted your palm into his. Gosh, he's _warm_, like the exact temperature you'd want your hands to be, comfortable and smooth. He feels just - really damn good.

"I do hope we still get to do it on Wednesdays, though," Brian says, his grin big and boyish. "My birthday is a Wednesday." 

"Your birthday is a Wednesday later this month," you point out. "No _way_ we get this cleared before then." 

"Sounds like a challenge."

He is feisty, and so _fucking_ sexy, and you give the fuck up and surge across the table to kiss him. He tastes like pho, duh, but his mouth is perfect and warm and willing just like his hand in yours, and you press close and hum out against him, a little, before you can make yourself retreat and sit back down. 

"Well, oh-_kay_, Pat Gill," he says, still grinning. "Yeah I guess that's phase two, here." 

"Phase two is I really fucking missed you over break," you tell him, straight-up. It's like the kiss has broken the seal, and now you're just - maybe babbling a little bit, but _look_, you've been thinking about him so much, and you had such an incredible time having him in your bed, that night, and you didn't think it was gonna be this big a deal but he's just so _beautiful_, and it felt so good, and it _still_ feels good, out at this pho shack, just being with him in the world, and when you realize you're saying absolutely all of this out loud you abruptly clam up, and hang your head, because he's laughing so sweetly at you, and like, _fuck_.

"Patrick," he says, soft and generous, stroking his thumb against the back of your hand. "I'm - I'm right there with you, mmkay? I've been thinking about it like, every day since. You wanna do this, let's _do_ this, baby."

You breathe deep, and it's like the soup cleared your sinuses, like your lungs can fit more air in them now than they could before. "Fuck yeah, let's do it."

And just like that - like it's that _fucking_ easy - 

You're doing it.

He walks you back to the office with your arms linked, and you coast through the rest of your day, the merch meeting with Jeff, an infinitely more boring technical-stuff meeting with Clayton. People start poking and prodding at a more fully actualized January calendar - you put yourself down for Unraveled, for Overboard, for your hard-magic-systems-as-storytelling-device thing you're gonna drop as soon as you slog through all this _fucking_ Squeenix footage - and you see where Brian's added a discreet, nondescript _[PG and BDG - Production Meeting]_ one empty afternoon next week, with just the emoji of a pot of soup. You poke your head up, try to find him in the bank of desks, shoot him a smile.

Saturday morning before you're even really awake yet, Brian texts you, _come over, bae ;)_, and you play along with the meme, _I caaan't, I'm not awake yet and I have to feed my son_, and he says _but my roommates aren't home ;) ;)_ and then says _No but seriously, laura and jonah are both out for at least a few more hours and also i order-up'd some greasy breakfast food_, and you go to Brian's apartment and lay him out in his bed and maybe, _maybe_ a little maple syrup ends up on his nipples, but that was mostly an accident. You sit in his lap and he touches you _everywhere_, slides his fingers against your asshole till you come stuttering out nonsense-syllables into his mouth, jerks his cock against your thigh until he's _laughing_ with it as he goes over, too, and then Jonah comes home early because it started to snow and his plans got postponed and the two of you _scramble_ to make it look like you weren't orgasming literally single-digits of minutes beforehand, and you have to give him all the home fries you were saving for later, to make it up to him. Seeing Brian stumble out into the kitchen in just his sleep shorts and your red flannel, unbuttoned around his broad chest, totally makes it worth it. 

Work rolls on, for the both of you. He bangs out the first Unraveled of 2020, something bonkers about time travel, hinging on the existential dread of the unstoppable passage of time that both the new year and his impending birthday are bringing down upon him. Y'know, real fun and upbeat stuff. You keep him grounded during the shoot with kisses pressed along his hairline, and he leaves tons of your off-camera laughs in the final edit. You finally finish your hard magic video, slotting it in neatly next to blood and explosions and Muppets, and Brian retweets it with _I think Patrick must be an actual wizard because this is one of my favorite videos in a long time :D_. One of your designs goes up on an official Polygon Dot Com Slash Merch t-shirt, and Brian gets one and _wears it to work_, your jerky sketchy lines stretched broad across his chest. Shit is _good_.

Shit is - mostly good.

There's still no word on Cyberpunk, and you and Brian especially are loathe to push the envelope what with how you've already been trying to covertly whittle away at Tara's Gill and Gilbert resolve (you're close, you're _so_ close; Brian might get his wish of a birthday stream after all). So Overboard rolls on with other games, at least for now, and you look back at the schedule and see that it's Potion Explosion, and that it's gonna be you, Simone, Jeff, and Karen. 

"You're not in on this one?" 

"Hmm?" says Brian. He's working immediately adjacent to you, which he does most days, now, not least of all so he can sometimes swing his feet up into your lap when he's feeling bored and flirty. You pretend to hate it, and he pretends to believe you. 

"Overboard. Been a while since we did one without you, I'm, I'll be kinda bummed."

"Oh... Uh, yeah," he says, noncommittally, and okay, maybe you're the king of hidden role game transparency, but you're not buying that one.

"I'm serious. I, uh, I really like doing videos with you, Bribri, I was looking forward to this one."

He inhales deep and then sighs out, and swivels his chair around to face yours, and oh, no, oh shit, that feels real bad. "Yeah, okay, so, this is kind of what I - look, I'm just gonna come out and say it, especially with, with G-'n'-G - "

"What exactly are you - "

"Pat Gill," he says, "are we boyfriends?" 

You purse your lips, not exactly following but still not loving where this is going. "Y...yes? I meeean," you say, "I'm a thirty-two-year-old man, but like, if you wanna say 'boyfriend' that's cool, we're definitely - "

He cuts you off again. "Are we boyfriends _'on main'_?" And he does big ironic finger-quotes, but he's. You can tell he's not joking. 

"Oh."

"Ye-eah," he says, softly. You can hear it in his voice, he knows how much this conversation sucks. You agree: it sucks ass. "I just. If we're gonna be in videos together we maybe should decide if we're fully _in this_, in front of the whole gosh-danged internet - we're 'bout to hit a million subscribers, baby - "

"No, yeah - " 

"So I figured just better to stay out of Potion Explosion, for now, so we - "

"No no I get it," you tell him. "Yeah. Um. _Shit_." Shit, Gill and Gilbert.

"Yeah," he says again. There's a - there's a question in it, this time, some wet inscrutable something hanging in his bright eyes; and there was never a world in which you weren't going to have to answer this question at some point, and there was never gonna be a _good_ time, was there. And you can tell, he's thought about this, at least a lot more than you have, and now he's kind of leaving the ball in your court. Making the choice together, but where you lead, he's gonna follow.

> IT'S NONE OF THE INTERNET'S BUSINESS. --> PROCEED TO [CHAPTER 24](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21918814/chapters/52317469).  
ABSOLUTELY YOU ARE BOYFRIENDS ON MAIN, FUCK IT. --> PROCEED TO [CHAPTER 25](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21918814/chapters/52317526).


	23. Chapter 23

You wonder, upon entering the building, just how swiftly and covertly you can move from entrance to elevator to work station with headphones on dead to the world. How many perfunctory _oh hey, good to see you, happy new year, how was your break?_ conversations will you have to have? And will one of them - 

\- sweet jesus fuck, will one of them have to be with Brian?

It's just like. As far as you can tell, the not saying anything move has been _so far so good_. He's been busy - you've been busy - if you're being honest with yourself, you've _stayed_ busy, or tried to anyway, because if you stop and linger on it you're gonna overthink it all to shit and just...ruin it. 

_It_, you keep saying to yourself, barely able to call a spade a goddamn spade: You had sex with Brian, and it was, mutually agreed upon, _good as fuck_, and two weeks later you're still kind of in shock that it happened _at all_, so like, turning around and looking at it seems like a surefire way to pillar-of-salt it into never happening again. 

You fumble yourself out of your coat in the elevator, pull a couple of wonky man-maybe-I-should've-shaved-this-morning faces at yourself in the semi-reflective metal walls. You got this, Pat Gill. Brian may be your coworker you've hooked up with now but he's still your _coworker_, your bud, the same ol' Brian David Gilbert who once threw himself into the Atlantic in late November, who tried to cook a cake in a wok, who grew a mustache specifically because the internet told him not to. You're not gonna bring the whole ordeal up like it's just that - an _ordeal_ \- and make the first Polygon workday of 2020 into something weird and insufferably anxious. 

"New year, new me," you say to your reflection, but of course that's right when the elevator dings open onto your floor and Simone absolutely sees you talking to yourself. 

"Aaaall right, Patrick, welcome back, kickin' things off right," she crows at you. You take the high road and very generously do not remind her that the last time you saw her she was falling asleep in Clayton's bed from being Too Weed. 

(You _do_ quickly scan the bullpen for Brian, but either he's not around or you actually did beat him to the office after all, and you try not to let that make you feel too relieved.)

You double down on it, the only surefire way to make her leave it alone. "New _year_ new _me_," you say, kicking one leg dramatically toward her, and in the process showing off that you're wearing the same-ass jeans and boots and shit you've been wearing for literally almost a decade and you are not, in fact, in any way new. Simone gives you her first blessed honk laugh of the '20s, and, also blessedly, as predicted, drops it.

"Good to see ya, Pat," she says, much more genuinely, and she claps her hand to your shoulder and wanders back to her desk. You wander, instead, to the kitchen, because you absolutely gotta drink some fucking caffeine before you can be expected to take on this day. The _first day back after a break_ \- fucking disgusting. It's proof that capitalism is terrible when you can love your job and still also technically fucking hate your job. 

You're on coffee number two, and painstakingly-trimmed gameplay footage clip - god, some of these old Squaresoft videos are artifacty as _hell,_ what are you even doing - number four, when you hear the unmistakably salty trill of Brian getting sassy about something bubbling up from the back end of the office. Someone else - Tara? What was he talking to Tara about? - laughs back at him very much in the cadence of _yeah right_, and you shake your head a little to clear it, extract it from the situation, focus on your own work. You definitely don't start to sweat, a little, just up under your hair across the back of your neck, or between your palm and the computer mouse. That would constitute _freaking out_ about it, which you are absolutely not doing. 

Ahh, shit, he's coming over here isn't he. 

"G'mornin', Pat Gill," Brian singsongs as he sweeps into view. You make a big show of sliding off one side of your headphones, even though you weren't exactly listening to anything that'd make it hard to hear him. Just, y'know, to take a minute.

"Hey, Bribri," you quip back. "Uh, happy new year, or whatever. Your break go well? Looked like some good Moose content on the Instagrams." Your voice sounds just, like, _impressively_ casual. Score one for Patrick, you're rockin' this.

"Oh, uh, yeah," says Brian. "Real nice, real chill." He drops off, for a moment, and you furrow your brow a little expectantly. "Uh, got this little - little Unraveled brainstorm, something something about time travel."

"Oh. Cool."

"Yeah." He stalls out again. Fuck, you're trying so hard, but are you still being weird? But then - "It cool if I throw some half-assed bits atcha later, see what bounces?"

"Oh, totally," you say. "Maybe like right after lunch? I got a merch thing with Jeff at two-thirty and then some garden variety editing bullshit with Clayton right after. But before that, defo." 

"After lunch," says Brian. "Yeah, yeah sure."

"Awesome. Catchya then." You offer, too: "You can update me on all the Gilbert Family Christmas shenanigans."

He smiles, a little, at that one. "Hell yeah." 

You nod in confirmation, and roll your shoulders to settle back into computer-zombie mode, and he walks slowly away. You don't, like, actively watch him leave, because _that_ would be terrible and weird, but when you can sort of tell just out of your _periph_ that he's pretty much gone, you allow yourself a shaky, relieved sigh. Cool. _Cool_. You survived that encounter and things can only improve from here. 

Right?

..._Wrong, apparently._

It's not even noon, not even remotely approaching _after lunch_, when out of nowhere Jenna tosses you a private message. And it is _not_ the exciting news about Cyberpunk Red that you've all been secretly holding your breath for.

_>dude, did you say something shitty to Brian?_

You can feel the color draining out of your face in real time. What...the fuck? You didn't say _anything_ to Brian.

_>wh... I did not say anything to brian  
>other than incredibly coworker bullshit banter stuff  
>kinda scared to ask but...why??_

"Kinda" is an understatement. 

_>He just like, very passive aggressively invited me out to lunch  
>Because, and I quote, "Patrick doesn't want to talk to me until AFTER"  
>Not sure what's going on with y'all but...keep me out of it please n thanks_

_>I don't fucking know what this means  
>but if you find out at this... "Lunch" he calls it  
>please let me know_

You slip your headphones off, for real this time, and take a pause in your work. You're...maybe playing a tiny bit dumb on this one, but only a _tiny_ bit. Was your interaction with Brian earlier like, bad and weird? You thought you were doing such a good job of keeping it _not_ bad and weird. Of keeping it just incredibly normal and chill. But this definitely has something to do with whatever is going on between the two of you -

_Whatever_, you keep saying to yourself. You slept with Brian. And if you dare to look back on it, to really acknowledge it for what it was, it was _fucking_ incredible. Which is exactly why talking about it right now, making it into some big thing that y'all are publicly acknowledging and - debating in the goddamn square - 

Is fucking terrifying.

You continue to not say shit, hunkering down on your video work, so then what turns out to happen is that Brian and Jenna go out to lunch, together, but they take lunch pretty late and they stay out pretty long. They're not even back yet by the time you have to duck into your meeting with Jeff, about maybe working with him on some Pat Gill originals to slap on, you dunno, t-shirts or phone cases or something for the brand spankin' new Polygon merch line, following in the flagship footsteps of the now wildly successful holiday season run of his and Brian's E3 retro gamer ass-eatin' tee. Wild as fuck, to think that someone might _pay money_ for something with art that _you drew_ on it, huh. You roll right from that into a shoot brief with Clayton - that's gonna be a fucking doozy - and you still don't see Brian anywhere on your way. You check your phone, see if maybe he's gonna - but nope, nothin' there either. 

His silence, his absence, goes from casual to conspicuous. You don't know what Brian _wants_ from you and it leaves you keyed up as hell, super distracted through your meeting with Clayton. You apologize to him, for not being all there, but the apology comes across super half-baked with how you're still trying so hard not to actually talk about it (_it, whatever, the **sex**_) here at work. 

It's not until the end of the day - after the end of the day, really, since both you and he dragged in a little behind this morning, _Pat Gill and Brian Gilbert got into work late so they're staying late too_, fuck, okay - that you're minding your own business hunting down an energy drink that you swore you left in the break room fridge before the holiday and suddenly he's there right the fuck behind you, leaning on a table. You hiss out _jesus!_ as you like, actually jump. God he can be sneaky when he wants.

"H-hey, Brian, what's up? Sorry we didn't touch base earlier - "

"_Pat_," he says, and it's pointed and crisp-clean and of course it cuts right through you. You wish you'd found the drink, but you didn't, so now you don't have anything to do with your hands.

"W...what's up?" you say again, with a little more trepidation this time.

"Why don't you tell me?" he says. There's - just so much fucking going on with his face, with his voice, you can barely suss out one thready weird emotional thing from the next. You fully don't know how to answer that.

(You are maybe still playing dumb, a little.)

Like some timed dialogue option in some game you probably played but didn't like, your silence apparently counts as an answer once enough time has passed, because after two or three long, painful beats, Brian speaks again. "Pat...the elephant in this room sucks major ass," he says. "I just - why aren't we talking about it? We don't see each other for weeks and now you're just acting like nothing ever happened?"

"B--Brian - "

His voice twists small, and oh, _god_: "Was it - not good, for you?" he asks, breaking your eye contact for just a beat - for just long enough. _Fuck._ "I just thought we had - such a - I thought it was - "

"It _was_," you reassure him immediately, because. Because. "Brian, it was so, so good, for me. It was like - the best for me, in a super fucking long time."

But somehow, that just makes him look even _more_ hurt, his arms hugging across his own chest, tight and twisting. "Then why didn't you _say_ anything?"

> BECAUSE...YOU GOT SCARED. --> PROCEED TO [CHAPTER 28](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21918814/chapters/52317712).  
BECAUSE...YOU DIDN'T WANT TO SCARE HIM. --> PROCEED TO [CHAPTER 29](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21918814/chapters/52317754).


	24. Chapter 24

There's a long, hard, still moment, while you think on what it would actually mean, to come straight out and say it, or to be so obvious on it that it wouldn't leave any room for speculation otherwise. It could - it could be really nice, you figure. It could also be _fucking_ miserable, the land mines you'll have to tiptoe around, the amount of work it would take to moderate, just, god, _overwhelmingly_ messy, and - and also, if you're honest, you're kind of enjoying just...this stretch, where you sort of have Brian all to yourself, riding the high bright wave of the two of you together. You kind of don't want to share - not yet.

"I think it - it's not really anybody's business?" you finally say. "People would probably, uh, would flip shit, huh. It's still uhh... New." You reach over and take his hand in yours, dig your thumb into the low bones of his thumb. "Fuck, is that cool? If I want to get my head on straighter - " He snorts a laugh at _straight_ and you roll your eyes, pretend it's irritated and not fond - "about the just-us kind of stuff before it becomes a thing other people are uh, witness to? Participating in?"

"Nn-no sweat, Pat Gill," he says, and he squeezes back at your hand. "All them parasocials are uh, pretty wild, huh."

"_Exactly_." You breathe out a little easier. Exactly. You add: "Besides, I dunno when's the last time _you_ rewatched a Gill and Gilbert, but I can't imagine we'll, uh, arouse any more suspicion now than we did then."

"Oh, god, who were we," Brian groans, laughing and slipping back to his computer.

"Allegra called it foreplay."

"That is, ah, that is not inaccurate." 

He drops it, and you drop it, and like - cool. That's that. Brian still stays out of Potion Explosion, which is probably for the best, because Simone _crushes_ you, and you're afraid of what that would've brought out of him and his wild, third-child competitiveness. It probably would've involved even more marbles getting thrown at people, and Clayton was leery enough about the equipment on that one as it was. (You _would_ have liked to see him in whatever his wizard-adjacent Look™ would have been, though. Surely an upgrade from Bone-Arm, if his Edgar Allan Poe was anything to go off.) January rolls over into February, and you're pretty sure everyone in the office absolutely knows you're dating, now - you filled out the HR paperwork and everything - but you keep it off social media, out of your videos, and so it still almost feels a little...illicit. Secret. In a _fun_ way. You're kind of obsessed with every time you and Brian find a little quiet moment to just yourselves, in the office or out of it, finding things you somehow don't know or never realized about each other even after two years; you hide those things down inside yourself, and they fuckin' - keep you warm, through this shitty winter that's finally, finally on its way out. 

Some of the best parts of that are your surreptitious Gill and Gilbert _production meetings_, holed up in a meeting room at the office after-hours or sprawled in your bed with your laptops wearing just your underwear, figuring out how you're gonna pitch this to Tara to really get her to bite. You unearth the Twitch channel and spruce it up, and he runs some Unraveled-ass data-crunching shit to show her how fan response to the show only continued to pop the fuck off even after it shuttered, and when Brian actually busts out a segment-stunt-style _song_ he wrote, she throws up her hands and sighs _yes, god, just get out of my office_, grinning madly out from under the impeccable curtain of her hair, and you cackle and wrangle him out the door with your arms around his waist. 

Tara offers you every other week, with February twelfth as a start date, but you delay a week because Brian is elbow-deep in his special Valentine's Day-themed Unraveled about romanceable NPCs. He's roped half the office into it, people who've never appeared onscreen in Unraveled before, and has you guys reciting nauseating, trope-heavy dialogue options to each other in all sorts of goofy combinations. You and Jeff get especially spicy, and Jeff ruins nearly every take laughing. Brian and Karen absolutely _nail_ an uncomfortably long shot of just silent infatuated eye contact. The heart-shaped glitter takes forever to clean up off the studio floor. 

Gill and Gilbert goes _great_, of course, because you knew it would. It's cliche as fuck but it's _crazy_ how easy it is to slide right back into the old rhythms, even a year and a half later, cramming multicolored marshmallows into your mouths every time Kirby swallows up a correspondingly-coded enemy, firing off screen-splash buttons all wrong, every time. The energy of Brian, warm and laughing, to your left on the streaming sofa, feels - _right_. You can't remember the last time you smiled this much, this long.

Neither can chat, apparently. 

Fuck.

"Maybe we need to have a separate chat moderator," you offer, once you've cut the stream and are looking, _ugh_, down into your gooey marshmallow spit-bucket, yikes. 

"Maybe you just need to not be so horny for me all the time, Pat," Brian teases from where he's taking down the Switch. 

"On _Gill and Gilbert_?" you volley back, eyebrow quirking. 

"Yeah, yeah, okay, good point. I dunno," he says, "let them talk, I honestly don't give a shit. You and I know what's real, so."

"Well, yeah, I know," you say. "I just. I thought we were actually trying to be, y'know. Discreet. On the dee-ell. It kind of sucks that people are just gonna make up their minds about us one way or the other anyway."

He rolls his eyes. "Patrick, it's the _internet_. That's kind of, kind of their whole jam." 

You look at him, really look at him, and he looks - tired, kind of, just around the eyes. Resigned. It occurs to you that he's probably been hit with just like...a ton of this, huh. You haven't been super visible for a while, with your Twitch streams kind of petering out and your on-screen Polygon contributions limited to mostly Overboards and your own shit, but god, they _real_ horny for Unraveled out there. His follow count on social media is pretty much double yours. You're fucking astounded that he's still kicking around on Instagram _and_ Twitter when you couldn't even deal with the one anymore. 

You scooch over to him and tentatively reach out to cup his cheek, and he allows it, goes soft against you. You kiss him just a couple times, against his lips, letting him just relax while you do most of the work. He rubs his hand slow and heavy across your back, and you take it for the _thank you_ that it is, and then you finish packing up and head home. 

There's an email from Jenna waiting for you when you get in the next morning that you dare to get your hopes up about, that just says _March I think but don't y'all jinx it you fucking weefles._ Simone opens it at about the same time you do, you figure, because she pops her head up over her desk toward yours and just _grins_, manic and open-mouthed, Aziz Ansari-style. You are fucking inclined to agree. It does mean that February's impending Overboard is just gonna have to be something else, though, and you know there are a couple pitches on the table but none of them are yours, you've got nothing, so you're not really sure how this one's gonna go down.

"Oh," says Brian. "I uh. I didn't think you were gonna do this one?" 

"What?" you say back, because what? You've done every Overboard since _last_ March, even despite being by your own admission the fucking worst at hidden roles. "Hhh - how come?"

"W - um, because," he says, faltering just as much as you are now. "Just, I figured, it'd be uh. My turn. We were trying not to go together, right? Because of the whole like, flying under the radar, no-horny-on-main, sort of, thing." 

You try not to frown, a little, but you think you're frowning, a little. "Ohh. Well, but, I mean - Gill and Gilbert is going fine - "

"Gill and Gilbert has _always_ been a fuckin' clownshow," he points out, laughing. "Overboard is our _professional_ content, Patrick Gill." And you snort and any potentially-manifesting frown disappears.

"Yeah, okay. Okay, well, I'm bummed as hell, but I'll dip out of this one, yeah, if, if you think it's, it's gonna be better."

"Just for now. That way we can fucking cross that Cyberpunk bridge when we come to it."

"Does Vang0 Bang0 know how to swim?"

"Vang0 doesn't know what he knows how to do, my man."

"Don't say the C-word in the office!" Jenna hisses, breezing past, carrying a basket full of, whoa, just an inexplicable amount of N-64 cartridges.

"_Macbeth_!" Brian calls back after her, spiteful and gleeful at once. Then he's back in his monitor, and the conversation you were having is over, you guess. You un-pencil yourself from the February Overboard, and leave it to Brian and the _girl gang_, Simone and Jenna and Karen and Chelsea-question-mark. God, you hope Clayton's ready for all that. 

You hope - _you're_ ready for it. You wonder if Brian felt this weird, when he sat January out - it'd been just as long for him, you realize, doing some quick backwards calculations. You don't have another Gill and Gilbert between now and then, either, so the most the two of you are collaborating on work stuff is throwing some loose Unraveled notes around and camera tag-teaming Jenna's N-64 thing (which turns out to be the channel's most surreal video in a while, somehow; 64s are cursed, you're pretty sure). You wonder if Brian felt this weird, watching you and Jeff yell at each other across a table covered in multicolored marbles, as weird as you feel now watching him gesticulate wildly at Karen where she's holding her Hanabi cards to her forehead and all four of them are green and none of them are the one she needs to play but she's about to play one anyway, and they collapse onto each other wincing-laughing when their fireworks explode. God, he's - _so_ cute. You need to get some of that cuteness turned back on you ASAP, you think. You guys didn't do a lot for Valentine's because you both agreed it's a little cringey and heteronormative for your tastes, thanks, but you're maybe kind of regretting it a little, now. 

You invite him over on leap-day Saturday with a text that says _hey, february 29th isn't a real day, which means nothing we do today is real, did you know that_, and he says _Sounds Fake But OK_ and you say _yes exactly_ and he rolls on over, with a couple of joints he swiped from Jonah and just, like, a _brand_-spankin'-new box of latex-free condoms. Oh, good, y'all are on the same page. You fall asleep way too early in the evening, it's like barely even eight o'clock, and like...you've never fallen asleep _still inside_ somebody, and you suppose technically you still haven't, but fuck, it's close. Brian's warm and inviting as he ever is, sweet and pliant and so, so good for it. You can worry about the mess in the morning. 

You wake up before him, mostly because Charles is scruffling around begging for breakfast, even though his bowl is still at least a third of the way full, fuckin' li'l stinker. You're powerfully considering the cold-breakfast-pizza option for yourself, honestly, when Brian surfaces and talks you out of it and makes you eat something with actual nutritional value. He's shirtless in your kitchen, looking sleep-ruffled and sinful, and you can't help but run your hand up over the thick curve of his pectoral, kiss him into your kitchen counter. He's lax and game. Y'all scrounge up some fruit and get a little more dressed, a little more tidy, and crash on the sofa. 

"Hey so wait did you brainstorm any more ideas for our next Gill and Gilbert gimmick?" you say, flicking through your own desktop sticky-note on the subject which is uh, a little dishearteningly spare. "It's too early for a guest, right, should probably just be the two of us goin' wild and wacky like usual." 

Brian squirms his legs a little, where they're curled up sideways onto the sofa between the two of you. "Oof, Gill 'n' Gilbert," he says.

"Please no eating stuff this time, that's my one request, god."

"Oh, sure."

He sounds - half-there, checked out. It sits wrong down the column of your spine, and you turn to look at him, and he looks both cozy and sweet and like, oddly impassive, all at the same time. "Brian," you say, softly, vaguely, something he can respond to any way he likes, really. You're a little uneasy with how many options there might turn out to be.

"Gosh, remember when we thought G-'n'-G was going to be relaxing and not stressful as hell?" he says with a laugh that. That you don't like, you don't think.

"I can - I can come up with something, Bri, don't worry about - "

"It doesn't feel weird to you?" he continues, not really jiving with what you're saying, still on his own path, and oh god, what is this, oh god. "Like, doing it like we always did, instead of like - like we are now? As us - as an _us_?" He waves his hand between the two of you, as if he needs to clarify. You slowly, uneasily, close your laptop and set it over on the coffee table, turning to focus more on him. "It doesn't feel, I dunno, fake or something?"

He's being nonchalant on purpose; you can see it, in the creases at the edges of his eyes and the squiggle of his mouth under his 'stache. You're reminded, again, of his over-invested Unraveled following, of _them parasocials_, of how much less checked out of it all he is than you are. It's. You can kind of connect the dots, you figure. You don't necessarily like the picture they make.

"Brian," you say again, even more vaguely, because this time you're not sure what you even want it to mean.

Brian says, "Pat, I love you." Your heart does that jar-lid-screwing thing it did at the holiday party, but about eight thousand times harder and crunchier. Oh, god, he hasn't said that to you before, has he. Not like this. You should - you gotta say - 

He says, "I love you, but I think - I - kind of - I think maybe I want to - date Karen?" 

His voice tips up at the end, but it's _not_ a question, and your mouth, which was halfway to saying _Fuck, I love you too_, immediately swings a hard left into "What the fuck?" And oh, god, that was the wrong fucking thing to say, you didn't mean it like, "I mean, shit, oh, jesus, not - "

"No, no, Pat, wait, let me." He presses one hand to his face, rests the other heavy on your thigh. "Just. Hear me out, okay? I love you so _fucking_ much and that's why this is so crazy, that's what makes this so - like. If we're not gonna be public with - I just - I don't know, she and I really like each other, and she's totally cool with, with us posting stuff, you know? Open - open stuff. I'd just." His voice goes small, tight, _scared_. You can count the times you've seen Brian David Gilbert be scared of something on one hand. "It'd be easier, for me. If I could. Say something." 

You're pinching at your nose hard, now, too, disoriented, grasping at straws trying to figure out what the fuck he's getting at and where this is coming from and it makes _sense_, the thing's he's saying, is the thing, except for the part where - he said he _loves you_ but does this mean - 

"Brian, fuck, Brian, does this mean - "

> DOES THIS MEAN YOU'RE BREAKING UP WITH ME? --> PROCEED TO [CHAPTER 26](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21918814/chapters/52317616).  
DOES THIS MEAN YOU'RE DATING _BOTH_ OF US? --> PROCEED TO [CHAPTER 27](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21918814/chapters/52317667).


	25. Chapter 25

You reach between your desk chairs, grab his hand quick and firm, and squeeze it in yours, and say, "Yeah, fuck it."

"Fuck _what_?" he says, blinking.

"Boyfriends on main," you say, "why the hell not. I'll fucking tweet it right now." You make a big show of twisting away from him to pull a Twitter tab open on your computer, and you're mostly joking but like. But like a little bit not joking, at all. "Send me that picture we took when Zuko was standing on your head, that one's real cute." 

"Oh my god, Pat, what, that's - we haven't even been dating _that_ long," he protests, very half-assedly. He is _also_ joking-but-not-joking, and it stretches your grin wider, goofier. 

"Yeah, okay, but like, it was a long time before that," you say. And you haven't really like - acknowledged that, maybe, acknowledged Allegra saying _an hour and a half of foreplay every week for six months_, acknowledged how shifting your routine to include _this_ has been as easy as breathing because, turns out, most of that shift had been done already before you were even seeing each other. Making room for him in your life just because you wanted to, just because you could, just because you knew if you left that gap, he would flow into it to fill it in like water. He'd yes-and and double down and complement and counter, because that's just who Brian _is_, and putting a name on it, and adding in the freedom to kiss him just, like, whenever, and to follow him home when he gives you that _look_, now, that's just. Icing on the cake baybee. 

He doesn't argue when you add, "We are a couple of fucking dumbasses," because that's probably the truth.

He just says, "Well, _aiight_, fuckin' dumbass, let 'er rip."

He ends up tweeting it, ultimately. You're neither of you on Twitter much nowadays but Brian at least does still have it on his phone, and he just drops the Zuko pic - no caption, no context, doesn't even tag you in it - later that afternoon. He turns his mentions all the way the hell off and you both resolutely do _not_ look at it for the rest of the day. 

(Well - the tweet, at least. You do look at the photo, because you're kind of stupidly obsessed with it: Zuko standing on Brian's head, his whole body contorted to stabilize himself while still getting the mirror selfie, making sure Zuko doesn't dismount, and _you_, cackling laughing, holding him around the waist with both hands to make sure he doesn't fall flat on his face. The whole thing is motion-blurry and wild, Zuko's eyes are just psychotic pinpoints of light in the mirror's reflection, but there's no mistaking the two of you, in comfy sleepover clothes, touching and smiling and losing your minds at how this even happened. It would probably make you super self-conscious for this to be out there on the public internet if it weren't kind of the cutest shit you've ever seen.)

You're already planning to head to Brian's place after work - somebody got him a few months of one of those meal-kit delivery things as a Christmas gift, and he's got one to cook for the two of you for dinner, and you're gonna crack down on either some Unraveled scriptwriting or some G&G stuff or both. On the train, though, he leans into you with a sigh, and shows you his phone, where he's got a couple texts from Simone. 

_>I respect y'all's decision to be stupid idiots in love as much as the next gal  
>But daaaaamn y'all maybe broke the internet with this one huh_

"Oh, yuck," you whine. "Dammit, I don't wanna be responsible and shit. I just wanna have a boyfriend." 

"What happened to _I'm thirty-two_?"

"_You're_ not thirty-two," you shoot back, grinning. "Still just a widdle boy."

"Screw you, old man." But he sighs, too. "Ugh, I dunno, should we - look at it? Do something? What even could we really do?"

"Absolutely nothing," you tell him. You smush a little kiss onto the high bone of his cheek, just under his eye. "The internet is always a shitshow, dude, they're gonna do what they want. I guess maybe later we could say something more explicitly, like, with words, but beyond that." You shrug.

His mouth finally twists back into a smile. "Damn, you're kinda - in with both feet on this one, huh." He curves his hand around your waist. "You _like_ this."

You try, and absolutely fail, not to blush. "Yeah, well, I dunno, it - it feels good. To have something, uh, good, in my life, that I'm not - that I'm not afraid of. Look," you scowl, "please don't turn me into a mush puddle on the fucking N train, I just wanna go to your house and make spicy noodles."

"Hell yeah," he agrees. He tips up and kisses your cheek, too, and stuffs his phone back in his pocket. 

You do get a couple more texts, as you're cooking dinner. Jenna sends you just a screencap of his tweet - _replies 83, retweets 280, likes 3.9K_, and holy shit it's only been a couple of hours - and Clayton doesn't actually mention the tweet, but does just text you both _Hey, I'm really happy for you guys :)_. Laura comes out and steals just some random chopped up bits of cabbage while Brian's cooking, which is lowkey gross to watch her eat just like, raw and by itself, and she's clearly seen the tweet, too, because she's extra vicious with her teasing, touching your hair and poking him in the sides and marveling over how _domestic_ you are, with him cooking for you. He legit brandishes a knife at her to shoo her away. You still don't look at the stupid tweet, or any of the comments.

It's when you suddenly get a Slack alert from _Tara_ that you kind of sit up and pay a little attention. 

_>Hey you goons, I 99% trust you, but I 1% wouldn't put it past you to be doing this right now specifically to get people more hype for potential G&G stuff.  
>Prove me wrong, please, and also come fill out yer HR paperwork tomorrow._

"Oh dang, yeah, we should do that," he mumbles, but you're - half a world away, because you're suddenly realizing - 

"Oh _shit_, Brian, what if we _did that_?"

"Wait, did what."

"The Gill and Gilbert thing," you say. "Gee-'n'-Gee, but boyfriends."

"Wait, for real?" You _see_ it, the moment the spark catches behind his eyes about it. He...doesn't hate it.

"You said it yourself, we kinda had to either, y'know, nut up or shut up about it."

"I did _not_ say that, yikes."

"Fuckin' whatever," you say. "But y'know, if, if everyone already knows we're a, a _thing_, we could really lean into it. That could be the whole gimmick."

"People would watch the shit out of that."

"_Yeah_ they would," you say, grinning, and he's grinning too, and oh my god is this maybe the stupidest idea you've ever had? But is it also definitely the idea that's gonna get Tara to let you do this damn show again?

This show, which is kind of - the _whole reason_ you and Brian are boyfriends now in the first place, his soft words in your blanket fort, an oasis from the rest of the world, looking for his place with you. And before that, _an hour and a half of foreplay every week for six months_. And right now, Brian tugging your bowl of noodles out of your lap to lean down the couch and kiss into your mouth, wet and smacking, his lips still stretched in a smile.

He messages Tara immediately.

_>You're 100% correct.  
>We did this because we felt like it but like, people are defo gonna come watch us now, boss  
>Don'tcha think?_

There's a long, uncomfortable pause, during which you finish your noodles, and Brian anxiously clears your dishes back into the kitchen sink just so he's got something to do. Laura's still puttering around, so you probably won't stay over, won't get too heavy, but you're flipping through his Steam library, looking for a fun way to while away a couple more hours together at least, when the return message finally comes.

_>All right, all right, you broke me._  
_>Get that twitch account serviceable again and y'all can do your damn show._  
_>DON'T MAKE ME REGRET THIS_

He _whoops_ with it, and you shoot over to him, both of you sliding on his hardwood floor in your sock feet, till you crash together and tumble back onto the sofa and he climbs into your lap and holds you and kisses you and _kisses you_. Your whole body feels alive with pure _fuck yeah_ energy, and he's restless, too, you can tell, his big ol' Brian brain already whirring and clicking trying to put the pieces of this thing together even as he slides his hands up inside of your shirt, touching your bare skin, sucking your tongue into his mouth. The threat of getting Walked In On looms too close for you both, and you keep your celebratory moment short, but damn if it ain't a _moment_, for sure, close and damp and indulgent, his hands and his body eager against yours and your heart beating just so damn fast. And when you pull apart you just can't. stop. smiling.

Turns out 2020 kind of kicks ass. 

You rendezvous with Tara first thing in the morning, both of you, to get all of the necessary shit squared away. She approves your HR stuff, and also officially approves Gill and Gilbert for - Wednesdays, again, every other week to accommodate your other time commitments, starting January 29th. Brian keeps his cool until you're out of her office but then the moment you're out on the main floor again he does a victory leap that may be the highest you've ever seen him jump, which is fucking _saying something_. You remain on the ground, mostly so you can catch him. 

The first stream goes, just, _fucking_ amazing. It's so, so easy to fall back into the rhythms of it - the new-and-improved screen splash buttons, which you still manage to fire incorrectly and accidentally and too many times. His _explosion_ of a Gilling In The Name Of, flash after flash of so many things that he can't even stop and name all the artists, he's just made a separate gallery page that y'all leave the link to on the bottom of the screen for the first half an hour or so. You press different-colored marshmallows into each other's mouths every time Kirby sucks up an enemy on screen, holding them in your cheeks for as long as Kirby's using their abilities, and you do your best not to swallow them whole and choke, and also not to mouth too hornily at Brian's fingers on twitch dot TV. You forget to allow _piss_ in the chat again, which you don't realize until the moment that Brian puts a yellow marshmallow in his own mouth, and then kisses it into yours, and the chat fucking explodes. It's like - it's so fucking trite to say, but it really is like just picking back up where you left off, a year and a half ago, like you never stopped.

At the end of the night, you surprise him by blushing and squirming your way through singing him Happy Birthday on stream, in front of - yeah, god, _thousands_ of viewers, and he holds your hand and preens, and then you sign off, and you take him home. 

You make a very deliberate point of removing all of his clothes with relatively little assistance from him, doing the work for him, getting him down to his underwear before you've taken off anything beyond your coat and your boots, sitting him on the end of your bed. Then you make a very deliberate point of removing all of _your_ clothes. It's not a - a _striptease_, you're not sure you have that in you, at least not without copious alcohol involved, but you look him dead in his dark, cocksure eyes as you slowly thumb open the buttons of your shirt, slide it back off your shoulders, tip your hips toward him to roll down the zipper of your fly. He's already touching himself watching your unhurried movements, palming broad and heavy at where he's swelling in his cheeky patterned briefs, and he licks his lips so _certainly_, like of _course_ he's going to get his tonight, and fuck if that doesn't just get you. By the time you're down to just your underwear too, you're harder than he is. You cross the foot or two toward him and stand in the bracket of his spread knees, looming over him just a little so his neck has to twist up to you. He touches you immediately, stroking smooth-heavy-confident up the slope of your thighs, around to squeeze at your ass, up to squeeze at your waist. You make a show of bending down to kiss him, exaggerating the stretch, staying tall next to where he's seated, below. You know he loves that shit because it means when he grabs your hips and _yanks_, throws you down on the bed next to him so he can hike a leg over and climb up and kiss you into the mattress, that you have even further to topple. 

"I get whatever I want, right?" he purrs, into the hollow of your chest, where he's licking and teething at your sweat there, _fuck_, he's so _warm_, while his grabby wanting hands curve at your underarms, roll your nipples under his thumbs. "Mmm, 'cause I'm the birthday boy."

"I'm yours," you promise him, and then "ah, fuck, _fuck_, Bri," because the heels of his hands are massaging into your rib bones in a way you can _feel_ in the core of you, and his mouth has found its way to your right nipple, and he's taking and taking of you and the whole point of tonight is that you're gonna let him. Your cock digs hard and insistent up into his belly on top of you now and your hand can't help but alight in his smooth, thick hair, twisting in to pet at him as his mouth takes you apart. He lets you do that for just a few beats, nuzzling up into it, silky-soft, and then he plucks your hand up with his own and re-deposits it up next to your head, your arm bent up and out of the way. You leave it there obediently and he slides his mouth up, up, skirts your armpit to slide down your shoulder and then bite into the palest, tenderest fleshy bit of your bicep. You fight back your embarrassed inclination to stop yourself from moaning, try to let all your sounds out for him. He hums out a satisfied-sounding little sound of his own and sucks in deeper, till you're squirming and just a little bit keyed up and there's a bright purple mark branded into your arm in the shape of his mouth. 

He trails back the way he came, then further, down, across, nibbles at your ribs and scrapes his teeth over your hipbone till the obscene shape of your cock is nestled against the soft edge of his jaw. He tugs your waistband down with both hands, his fingernails raking in, and then you breathe shallow, bright and ragged, as his soft warm mouth wraps around just the head of your cock, plush and tasting. He doesn't take you too deep, nothing that would stretch his pretty lips against you, just suckles around the head like he's trying to map the flavor of you to his brain permanently, his hand just resting at the base to keep you pointed in the right direction, his other thumb massaging into the highest thin-skinned inside stretch of your thigh, fuck, _fuck_. You probably could come like this if he'd let you, but you don't think that's - nnnope, fuck, he licks up at the ridge of your head just a couple more times and then slips away, and then - noses deeper, fuck. Oh, god, oh _shit_. Your hands fist into the sheets up around your head where he's left them as his, doubtless, confident, tip your hips up and back so he can sink his mouth in against your hole, pointing his tongue in past your rim and sucking dark, fluttering kisses to the pucker of it, humming and murmuring till your whole, like, pelvis _zone_ is buzzing with it, nerve endings crackling like thunderclouds. Your thighs loll apart, making room for him to take what he wants from you. Oh, god, "Oh, fuck, _Brian_, ffffuh, fuck _me_." You feel so fucking vulnerable, cracked open to him, and it's making your brain fucking twist itself inside out, your heart and your cock _throb_, how much you want him, how high you are on his self-assured hands and mouth. 

"Baby," he whispers down into you, "I'm _gonna_ fuck you." Your thighs _quake_ and your spine tries to crawl out of your body, jesus fucking christ.

He eats at your hole for a little while more, touches your ass and your thighs and occasionally your cock, dragging his fingertips through the wet beading at the head until you whine. When he finally pulls away, it's only so he can scrounge up the lube and the condoms, and you can't even move to assist, pinned to the bed at the wrists and the hips from his unspoken instructions, your limbs stretchy-restless and _wanting_ for him. God, there he is again, staring at you and jerking at his own cock, and you feel - that feels fucking good, okay, for him to want you enough that this is part of what he wants for his birthday. He slides two fingers home so _easy_ after he licked you open for so long, and then he shoulders up under your thighs and nudges forward and he's _in, fuck_, the long slow push of his blunt cock, his body folding forward around yours till you're mostly bent double and his hands are propping him up over you, leverage on the mattress, his mouth in kissing distance. You kiss him even though he just had his tongue all the way the hell up your ass and he _grins_ for it, dragging your bottom lip slow and nasty between his teeth, and then he starts to _move_ and you are _floating_ on the exquisite ache of the stretch of him, the way you feel so exposed and so _filled_ at the same time, and the perfect, snapping rhythm of his dancer hips, the power in his body, taking you, taking you apart. He grabs your hand and moves it, again, to put it on your own cock, so you can touch yourself while he fucks you, so you can come gasping his name, _nnh, Brian, **shit**, Brian, oh oh gaahhhhh_ till you're fucking shaking with it, and his quickening, collapsing thrusts hit _hard_ now that you're coming down, jolting you further up the mattress, his face buried in your neck, biting, panting, _laughing_, "Geez, god, Pat, you taste so good you feel so good I _fucking_ love you," and then he's gone, gone, pushing _hard_ into your thighs till your muscles burn and the socket of your hip actually pops with it, that deep weird little firecracker of relief, when he slumps spent and satisfied across your come-messy chest. 

It's a long, long double handful of beats before either of you can come back to reality. You're floating, some-fucking-where, and you feel like he probably is too, and you wonder if you're floating in like, the same place. 

He says, "I meant it," and doesn't explain, and doesn't have to.

You say, "I love you too, dweeb, and I mean it, too." 

And you shove him off you, and he slides out of you, and then you hoist him up across your shoulders and carry him dutifully to the shower. It's his birthday, after all.

> **WOW, BIG FINISH!!** ♥♥♥ Looks like you saw your adventure with BRIAN through to its beautiful, sexy conclusion. Good for you! amazing! Now, if you like, you can start a new game at chapter 1, or skim back a move or two to check out some other options. (But like, this one was probably the best one, right?) Thanks for playing GILL OR BE GILLED!


	26. Chapter 26

You swallow hard around the lump that's welled up in your throat, which you're honestly hoping maybe has to do with your fruit allergy and not the uh. The fucking. Situation, that this is. "Like," you stammer out. Regroup. "Like we're. You're gonna not date, uh, me - you're gonna - "

"Well no!" he says, his voice sounding uncomfortably loud in your apartment that suddenly just feels - _so_ quiet. "No, Pat, god, no, obviously I'd - I _love_ you, I don't want to, to break up, or anything. It'd be like. Adjacent. Simultaneous. A - a polyamorous, thing." 

You take a deep, deep fucking breath, slow exhale, and like - okay. Okay, that actually seemed like it was really, really hard for him to say, to cop to, and you love him and he _loves_ you, and you need to respect and appreciate that. Okay. "Adjacent," you say.

"Yee-eah," Brian says, his voice easy and delicate. "You, you could be my boyfriend, and Karen could - be my girlfriend? Hopefully." 

You've literally never thought about this, even conceptually, much less as a thing that would be happening to _you_. Like, yes, okay, you know it's a thing that exists out there in the world, and that lots of people do it in a totally chill way, probably, but this is - you are gonna have to _really_ think on this. "I am uh, really gonna have to think on this one, Bri," you tell him. 

"Totally fine!" he's quick to say. 

"I don't - want to say no," you say. You sigh again. Fuck. "Fuck, I _really_ want to say yes. Brian, I - I _love_ you." You reach out and grab his hand in yours, lift it up to your chest, press it down and in over your heart and your lungs. It's his turn for a big, shaky exhale. "But you have to know this is some wild shit for me all of the sudden." 

"Absolutely absolutely, definitely, yes," he says. "Take all the time you need, we can uh, we can pause on our shit, I will patiently await your call here, Pat."

His face is just so open, so sweet and bright and Brian, with his mouth twisted in an open little shape that's tinged with just a little, just a _little_ bit of heartbreak, and it's fucking killing you. You tug on his hand, his arm, until he folds forward onto you and you can wrap him up in your arms, kiss him at his temple, hold him close to you. Your whole world feels fucking flipped upside down right now and it's wild, _insane_ that he can be both the reason it's happened and the one thing you trust to ground you to reality, but you figure that's. That's what it's fucking like to love somebody, or some horrible _feeeeelings_-type shit like that. So you hold him for longer than what is probably normal, and when you finally let him up, you've very, very tentatively righted yourself.

He doesn't stick around too long after that, gets a little cleaned up in your bathroom and then heads home, pecking a little kiss to your cheek as he dips out the door; and when he's gone, you drift untethered back to your sofa and sit down, hard, and just kind of. Stare, for a minute or two. And then an indeterminate number of minutes more.

You - already didn't really have plans for this day, and now you _super_ don't have plans, and you end up not even leaving the apartment at all except to take the trash out after you change Charlie's litterbox. You wander, and think, and snack, and think. You do some only mildly ego-bruising Google searching, stuff you both feel like you should somehow already know (_duh_) and also feel like, like, how the hell is this stuff anyone knows at all? You stare at your phone, and _think_, and try to wrap your whole fucking head around this, because - 

Because your heart, you've determined, is already so completely wrapped around it. And so if your head could please just get with the picture, you could just get to the bottom of this, and everything would level out, and your ship could keep on sailing.

_>me and karen don't have to do anything do we?_

_>oh!!   
>absolutely not! uhhh unless you like, want to, but i've not ever seen either of you do anything that would indicate that that is the case  
>yknow, it can just be like  
>V_

_> :V_

_> :V_

You think about it for another hour, and you answer a couple useless emails to try to like, distraction yourself into something like normalcy, and then you just bug out and send Brian the meme from Parks & Rec where April is introducing her boyfriend, and his boyfriend. He shoots you just a tentative, soft question mark, and you shoot him back a tentative, soft thumbs-up emoji. Then both of you say _I love you_ a couple more times, and then at work on Monday, you spot Brian having what is unmistakably a capital-c Conversation with Karen, which you don't eavesdrop on at all, but which, if you're reading it right, seems to go pretty damn well. 

And like, that, you and Karen Han are just...both dating Brian. You have no idea what the _fuck_ this means, other than sometimes they use the words _boyfriend_ and _girlfriend_ when they tweet at each other, and that sometimes when you ask him to come back to yours after a shoot runs late, now he just smiles this apologetic little smile that he only ever makes when he's about to say _sorry, Karen and I have a thing_ and says "Sorry, Karen and I have a thing." It's adorably predictable, so you can't even hate it, honestly. Wednesday nights post-Gill and Gilbert you get dibs, anyway, and that's the best shit, when you get him all to yourself for hours. 

His time management skills are pushed to the brink, a little: Unraveled and his other shoots and Gill and Gilbert, and Karen, and you. And, in the softest and most whispered voice, _Cyberpunk_, looming on the horizon as March's Overboard draws nearer. You all pile to Simone and Jenna's place, one night, to make Jenna _actually_ watch Keanu Reeves in Dracula so she can get a better handle on your fucking car - and if that isn't the most buckwild clause you have ever mentalized - and Brian brings Karen, and for the first time, the three of you are like. Doing an activity together. He sits between the two of you on the sofa, and he looks so - _soft_. Content, and finally just fucking chilling, his right arm wrapped around her shoulders as she wails and gesticulates about cinematography and his left hand curved around your thigh as you try to make salient points about vampire lore. 

It occurs to you, in that exact moment, something that should have been incredibly obvious but somehow hasn't yet crossed your mind because you've been so fucking just - _in outer space_ about this whole thing, letting it happen to you and around you because it's making Brian happy and all you want is for him to be happy, it occurs to you right then, in front of God (Keanu) and everybody, Jenna yelling at you to shut up, Simone absolutely engrossed, it occurs to you, now that you're both sitting on this same sofa, that both you and Karen Han are having sex with Brian. 

It's. 

It's weird, right? This is all _weird as shit_?

You don't want it to be weird. You try _very, very hard_ for it to be as _un_-weird as possible. But you can't shake this energy from your veins, this shit that's started at your wrists or something and has crawled spider-like all the way up your arms and settled shitty and skittering around your heart, like - like the Incredibly Yuck Vibes of having to interact with your partner's ex unexpectedly, except for they're not even exes, they're _still dating_. And you don't _want_ to feel that way about Karen, because you _like_ Karen, she's a hilarious tweeter and a dope reliable coworker and a good person, and she makes Brian so, so fucking happy. Every time he updates his Instagram with some dumb adorable NYC shit they're doing together you stare at it for a solid five minutes, even if it's just his silhouette clearly holding a phone up cast in shadow across an overfiltered picture of just her. And you feel like the least woke little punk piece of shit ever for not being able to handle this. But what happens is, about midway through your mid-March Gill and Gilbert, you catch yourself trying way, way too hard and just...overcorrecting. The words _vibe check_ appear way, way more often than is normal in the chat, the segments feel uninspired at best, and for the first time in Gill and Gilbert history, there are a couple stretches that feel a little more just like - two dudes, sitting quietly, streaming themselves playing a video game. 

You hate this. You love Brian, and you don't want to hate Karen, and the problem, it's so very obvious, is _you_. And so before you bring this cursed energy down onto Cyberpunk in addition to G-'n'-G, you gotta -

Quit while you're.

Well, not _ahead_, exactly. 

And _quit_ is just like, a very strong and hostile word.

And the part that hurts the most? Is that he totally calls your shot before you even can. 

"Hooo, hello Pat Gill, looks like we're about to have a Talk." You feel the capital letter in his voice, god damnit.

"Hey there, Clippy here! Looks like you're trying to have a serious, awkward conversation!" you joke out, and he laughs, and it is, absolutely, awkward, but that's like. Reassuring. "Uh." Fuck.

"Yeah."

"Yes. Okay. So." _Fuck_.

"Let 'er rip, baybee," says Brian.

"I fucked up." Yeah, that's a really solid way to start. "I - I wanted this to be good for you."

"I know you did," he says. "But like. Pat," he says. "You know - you _gotta_ know, I want it to be, it needs to be good for you, too."

"I know."

"I care so much about you."

Your voice shrinks so, so mortifyingly small. "I know." You do know - you think you know. It's, uh, very good to hear him say it, though, just for reinforcement.

"Don't like, contort and compromise yourself for whatever you think I want, babe, it hurts to watch." He's holding your hands now, and fuck you are not going to cry, this is _stupid_, it is absolutely not worth crying over, especially since it is _your_ fault. 

Deep breath. You close your eyes and squeeze his hands and say, all in a very straightforward, clipped rush: "I would like to bow out now before Gill and Gilbert becomes fucking unbearable and bad, and one of us has to quit Polygon and move to Indiana, or some shit." You open your eyes again and bite your lip. "Well. I wouldn't _like_ to do it. But. It's gotta. Get done."

"Git 'er dunn, Pat Gill."

"I _hate_ you, this is so excruciating, please be nice."

He laughs and kisses you right on the mouth, and it tastes like, Brian-y and normal, and not nearly salty enough for you to be crying, so like, _score_. "I am nice," he says. "You're very nice, too. Thank you so much for - um, for sharing your feelings with me, and for making this decision, and taking care of yourself. I'm proud of you."

You maybe cry, a little bit. 

Cyberpunk gets postponed till April, and you take just one (1) day off work, to get some space from it, to spend some time snuggling with Charles and unkinking all of the shitty knots out of your chest. Karen texts you just once, and all it says is _you are an incredibly decent man_, and that maybe sets you off again, just a little bit more. But you make it back to the office on Tuesday no sweat, and the April Fool's Day installment of Gill and Gilbert is only, like, four percent as awkward as it could have been, and that's mostly because of all of the mysterious fluids. 

(And if you still maybe stare at his Instagram updates for longer than is healthy, sometimes, well, that's your own fucking problem, huh.)

> **RATS!!** Looks like your adventure with BRIAN has come to an end. Your best bet now would be to start a new game over again at chapter 1, or maybe to backtrack a few steps and make some different choices. Omniscience is on your side! Thanks again for playing GILL OR BE GILLED!


	27. Chapter 27

"Does this mean you're gonna uhhhh. Date, like, both of us?"

Brian bites his lip, he looks away, he's flushing red a little, but he's nodding. "Well, like, yeah," he says. "I mean, I don't want to break up with you! Obviously! So, y'know, I just - I mean, I am uh, I'm - sometimes you just, you date more than one person," he finishes, a little flustered.

"Yeah, Bri, I'm woke enough to know what polyamory is," you quip back, and it makes his flush darken, but now it's fond frustration, which you are way better equipped to deal with. 

"Well okay then, _geez_!" he sasses, and he twists back further into the sofa cushions, sideways, his legs flopping up into your lap, his arm flopping up over his face. You completely understand, and agree, that this is probably a lot easier to talk about if he can't see you. "Like, I dunno, I've _known_, you know, that I _could_, maybe, that I am - especially since my junk was all so long-distance for so long. You - you get it."

"I get it."

He risks a peek back at you, one eye out from under his wrist. "And you don't think it's gonna get weird?"

You realize - sudden but soft, like a pitcher that's been filling with water that just sort of...abruptly overflows - you realize, in the exact moment that you're saying it out loud, "I...don't think it's gonna get weird!"

Brian groans, no real vigor behind it though. "Okay well _that's_ real friggin' reassuring - "

"No, no, jesus, like - I fuckin' - I think I thought I was going to think it was weird," you say. "But I don't think it's weird. I love you."

Brian's fully looking at you now, sitting up now, crawling into your lap now. You take his weight easily, sinking deeper into your shitty couch, and accept and accept and accept when he kisses and kisses and kisses you. You love how he tastes like a bunch of fruit that you're not at all allergic to, and also, you love him. 

Monday, at work, you give Brian and Karen a wide as hell berth in the moment you know it's happening. You can see it, from your spot at the edge of the breakout space, that something's going down at the far end of the office, but beyond making sure it looks like it's going _well_ \- which it _does_, you are thrilled and relieved to see - you do your best not to pay too much attention and let it happen for them in like, their own separate zone. Right around quittin' time, Karen actually messages you, and it's just the image from Parks & Rec of April introducing her boyfriend, and her boyfriend's boyfriend, with the three of your faces photoshopped in, intentionally badly. And you do, you crack the _fuck_ up, and you realize all over again that you really don't think this is gonna get weird.

It takes virtually _no_ time for them to start being Together On Main. Karen tweets volumes more than either of the two of you do, and they are all hilariously good all the time, and now just, like, more of them have the word _boyfriend_ in them to describe someone under the age of forty. (...It's Brian. You want to make that very clear, he is absolutely the only one. You and Karen _do_ think about maybe, uhh, connecting the third side of this triangle, but you kiss her exactly one time before realizing that that's so fucking wild and you would both rather sink into the earth, no offense. The height difference alone is almost enough for it to not be worth it.) Brian _breezes_ through his workdays, flitting between you and Karen and whatever other shit he's on about at any given time like the happiest pinball in the machine; and maybe he gets even a little _more_ manic and anal-retentive about his schedule, his time management, Unraveled and other shoots and G-'n'-G and Karen and you, but, well, they don't call him wunderkind for nothing. 

(They call him that because he insists upon it. You are more than happy to play along.)

More than anything, it's visibly better on stream. The way he can just casually confess, in your mid-March installment, that he lowkey grew that mustache specifically because he'd hoped Karen would think it's cute - like, you feel like that should sting, because that was _ages_ before he got together with you, and to know he's been into her that long is kind of extreme, but when you cock your head stage-left and see the loose, relaxed line of his thick shoulders and the easy curve of his smile, as he wrangles the wireless keyboard into submission and tries not to knock anything over, it flows out from your heart and down all your limbs like, like that pitcher of water overflowing again, warm and smooth and just. Such a _relief_. Whatever bad vibes were threatening to creep in before he had an outlet for all his up-to-eleven-all-the-time emotions have fucked all the way off. And you have Karen to thank for that. For the fact that Brian, the man you _love_, is gloriously, ridiculously happy. 

He's in your lap, on his sofa on a rare and _blessed_ night where both his roommates are out _and_ it's your turn, not hers, on the Star Wars. You _know_ he can feel your cock hardening against the other side of his thigh, he's being far too squirmy and tactile for you to _not_ and he should know better than that by now, but he's staying coy, just slipping his fingers through your hair and talking about - about _work shit_, god, you will yourself to please _please_ not Pavlov this shit and get a boner later in the office. 

"So wait what about," he says, breathy and warm and sweet, "what about - like, when are we gonna get Karen on G-'n'-G."

"Oh my god," you groan, because you - kind of don't want to be talking about Karen while you're getting hard, thanks, but also because you can just imagine it, how _huge_ Brian's smile would be, wedged between both of you on the streaming couch, flirting identically hard with _both_ of you right there on Twitch in a way that would leave the whole chat screaming. You have to admit, it sounds like a hell of a fun way to spend a Wednesday night.

"Hear me out," he insists, as if you were protesting. "No, wait, get this - we call it, we call it _Han Trio,_ like instead of Han Solo, and then we play a bad Star Wars game."

You roll your hips up under him, bucking him like a little kid on one of those coin-operated rocketship rides, and he winks saucily at you but keeps playing dumb. "Title-first comedy, I see," you say.

"It's a good pun!"

"It's a good pun."

"She'd love anything that's linked to a movie franchise too, obviously, we'd basically have to if we were going to get her on."

"Hey, real quick, Bri?" you finally say. "Stop talking about your girlfriend."

He _grins_, but you wipe it loose by shoving your tongue in his mouth. He tangles his hands deeper and tighter into your hair, and you exhale out a whine, just like every time. But oh, he goes over so easy in the end, he's just so _comfy_, so soft and warm and absolutely at ease, and man, if he's gotta babble about his girlfriend a little bit before he lets his boyfriend fuck him silly - 

Well, you'll fucking take it.

> **BEST OF BOTH WORLDS!!** Your adventure with BRIAN (and KAREN...?) has now come to an end. Everybody wins! So now you can start a new game, by returning to chapter 1. Or, if you prefer, go back a step or two and make some different choices, to see where you end up! Thanks for playing GILL OR BE GILLED!


	28. Chapter 28

"I..."

Fuck. All your thoughts come whooshing into your head like just - a whirlwind of _shit_, brand new thoughts originating from this very encounter clashing and swirling with. With thoughts you've been explicitly trying not to have. About the _it_, the _whatever_, the sex. The sex with Brian.

With _Brian_. Brian, who's a coworker, and also so much more than that, who is your _closest friend at work_, maybe, someone you partner up with on nearly every major project either of you puts out. Probably the only thing that would top hooking-up-then-fucking-up with Brian would be hooking-up-then-fucking-up with _Simone_, and she only wins because she's got seniority. So you have maybe, both out loud and also _in your own head_, been avoiding acknowledging your after-after-party extracurriculars, the absolutely amazing memory of Brian's _cock in your mouth_, jesus fucking christ, and it is for this exact reason: that admitting it exists means you have to give it shape in the world, in your lives, and the form it takes is going to be fucking breakable as hell. You and Brian fucked, and it was beautiful, and then he left for two weeks, and now you're back in the office as coworkers again. As the meme goes, you Don't Have Time To Unpack All That. 

You've been silent, hanging on that _I_, for just an unconscionable amount of time, conversationally speaking, but the shit whirlwind in your head is leaving you dizzy, and you lean your arms down lock-elbowed on the table, steadying. Brian follows gamely along to keep you in a place where he can make eye contact, as soon as yours manage to flutter open again, where they've sort of squeezed shut for a second. "I," you try again. "I - I didn't know what to say."

"So you just didn't say - anything," says Brian. He sounds like he's trying to follow along but he also sounds so fucking unimpressed. This is - exactly what you were afraid of.

Oh god, you're so afraid.

"I was just so _afraid_," you say out loud, reeling against the table again - at least, _you_ think you are, Brian probably can't see it at all. "I just - it was so much so fast, a-all at once, it was so fucking terrifying to think about it getting - "

"_Good_?" he says acidly.

"_Bad_!" you counter, your head whirling (_whirling whirling_) to look at him square-on again. "So, so so bad, Brian, if this implodes on us, if I fuck this up a-a-and everything turns from amazing to _shit_ in like an irreversible way, and then every day is just. Like this." You flap your hand kind of uselessly between your two bodies, as if that means _fucking_ anything.

Brian purses his lips, hard, and then no, that isn't enough, and he puts his hands to his face, too - not face-in-hands, not like you're inches from, but in his so very Brian way, the backs of his fingers resting just under his eyes, his gaze skyward. He breathes big and deep, just once. "You're just assuming," he says, and his tone is so neutral that it sounds accusatory, and you're not sure how he fucking does _that_. "You're just like, already planning on this getting shitty. On you turning it shitty somehow." The _you_ is so neutral that it sounds _damning_. But you can't conceive of any way that Brian could ruin anything, so of course it would be you.

"I've got a pretty abysmal fucking track record, kid," you tell him.

You both sink, slowly, in, toward each other, sit your asses on the edge of the table. You don't sit close enough that your bodies are touching. He's keeping his arms wrapped tightly around himself; you're drumming your fingers on the table's edge, rocking slightly, losing your fucking mind. Whirling, and terrified.

"Maybe I won't fuck it up," you offer, weakly. "M--Maybe I can get my head on straight about it, somehow. I _want_ to. Brian - "

"Don't," he warns, as your hand slides toward him, and you retract it immediately.

"I just need - just give me some more _time_, to figure out - my own garbage."

"You had _two weeks_, Patrick." Fuck, he's not wrong. "If - if you're just gonna be terrified of doing _anything_, the whole time, maybe just - maybe not doing anything is gonna be. Better. For both of us." You hear it, underneath there: _for me_.

"Y...yeah," you say. "Yes. Fuck, okay. Get out while we still can."

"Yeah." 

You fall silent, for a while. It's late enough that you probably both should go home now. You rock up off the table and, on a whim, look in the freezer instead of the fridge for that energy drink. It's in there, and the can is ruined, bulged out at both ends, should probably go straight in the dumpster on your way out.

"Well, good," Brian finally says, as he gets up and starts to leave. "Because Tara didn't exactly go in for my _Gill & Gilbert 2020_ pitch this morning, and now we don't have to worry about it."

He says it on purpose to hurt you, and it does, and you deserve it. But you wait till he's out of the room to thunk your head hard into the freezer door.

> **THIS IS THE WORST TIMELINE!!** Your adventure with BRIAN has come to an end. How would you like to proceed? 
> 
> START A NEW GAME! --> RETURN TO [CHAPTER 1](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21918814/chapters/52316155).  
MAYBE JEFF WILL UNDERSTAND BETTER. --> PROCEED TO [CHAPTER 32](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21918814/chapters/52317889).  
MAYBE CLAYTON WILL UNDERSTAND BETTER. --> PROCEED TO [CHAPTER 33](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21918814/chapters/52317910).


	29. Chapter 29

Why _didn't_ you say anything?

Well, about forty-five different answers whizz through your head like a volley of arrows. You didn't want to freak him out. You didn't want to freak _you_ out. It's weird at work. The timing seemed wrong. You didn't want to freak him out with how much you like him. He didn't say anything to you, either. Simone was listening and you wanted to keep this just between the two of you. You didn't want to freak him out with how much you like him, because it's a lot. It was just a hookup. You didn't want to freak him out with how much you like him, because it's a _fucking lot_. 

Bullseye. 

"I'm - oh my god I am so fucking sorry I am such a _fucking_ idiot," you preface, your body kind of shifting to match his, hip leaning on the table, arms folded. He nods at you in a way that so very clearly says _yes we been knew, your point, please_. You twist, a little, looking at him less because it's easier, addressing your thoughts to the refrigerator. "I - just - here's the thing," you say, and oh god, how long is this gonna take to yank out of your mouth. A clown with scarves. "I liked it - too much."

"Pat - "

"It was so good I made myself not think about it because I was so fucking terrified," you blurt. "I have been like actively trying not to think about something that was actually incredibly good, which sucks. Although - possibly something I have a lot of experience with, so." God, _stop_ talking. Keep going. "But like. I saw you, here, today, in that - sweater - " (It's an astonishigly good sweater, probably something he got for Christmas because it fits him _so_ well, like it's new, like it's meant for his 2020 body.) "And I had to think about it, a-and I freaked. And I'm realizing right now in this moment why I freaked, which was because I was scared, but the only thing I was, I was really scared of, was. Was scaring _you_." You take a deep, just, _huge_ fucking breath, and stop looking at the fridge and start looking at the ceiling, and then close your eyes and look at nothing. "Because of how much I liked it, and how much I like. You. You, okay. Just a completely irresponsible amount." 

You still have your eyes closed, and he isn't saying anything yet, so you have no _idea_ what's going on and this is possibly the most terrifying fucking moment so far. But the thing is, now that you've said it: You're sure. The thing you were scared of was upsetting _Brian_, was scaring _him_ off, was (is, _is_, oh god your heart is _pounding_) him deciding it's too much for him. As it turns out, you're not for a second scared of what happens if he decides it _isn't_. 

It's the longest twelve seconds of your life, and then you feel the table beneath you shift a little as he shifts his weight, and then Brian presses his body against your body, shoulder to hip, all along your side. He rests his head on your shoulder, and his arm uncurls to wrap around your waist across your back, and you breathe in a sharp, hopeful breath that smells like him, with your eyes still closed. 

He says, "Oh, Pat Gill," in that way of his. He says, "I like you an irresponsible amount, too." 

"Brian," you whisper, curling into his touch.

"You don't have to be scared of your feelings, y'know," he tells you. "Like, I understand why you were. Are. And you're valid as hell. But you being _too into me_, that's never - like, unless you're, you know, stalking me and telling me you wanna wear my skin or something - " You snort with laughter; you get it, you get it - "it's gonna take an awful lot to frighten me off, is all I'm saying." 

You open your eyes, and turn to look at him, and he's gazing at you _so_ intently, his face so so so close to yours. You see his left hand hover up, reach toward you, like he wants to touch you but stops himself. So you - do it for him. Press his sweaty palm into the prickle of your beard, and hold on to his wrist, and kiss back, when he kisses you.

He kisses you. Even without a whole lot to stack it up against, this is easily the softest, tenderest kiss you and Brian have shared yet, even more than his sweet tipsy nudging in the soft-focus yellow light of the blanket fort. He's delicate with you like he thinks you're some breakable thing, and you feel like you sort of _are_, right now, or could have been, so you are nothing but grateful. You touch his hip, sort of in awe. Oh, he likes you. Oh, he isn't afraid. 

Oh, he _is_ still upset with you, maybe.

"That doesn't mean I'm not still upset with you, though," he says, head back on your shoulder. "_God_ you're dumb."

"Guilty." 

"Just really a big galoomba on the whole thing."

"Yep."

"But we can _talk_ about it," he says, squeezing his hand at your waist, as he starts to extricate himself from you. His new sweater is _so_ plush-soft, your hand drags after it as he goes, a little. "We can - listen, Pat, if, if you wanna start some thang, with me, we can start that right here right now." His smile is soft and small and perfect, and you're not gonna break, after all, you think, when you can't help but grin back. 

And wink at him - "Right now? Right here? In the break room?" You dig your tongue to the corner of your mouth. He rolls his eyes.

"Well I mean technically we _started_ it at Clayton's place," he counters, giving you his own wink. "But we could continue it...tonight?"

Oh, _fuck_ yeah, because - "Dude yes, I think my roommate's working super late, tonight is perfect. Absolutely come over. For talking."

Brian's smile is blooming wider, bright and beautiful, when it suddenly - falters. "Aw, _wait_, no, I don't - I could come over but I couldn't stay the night, I have to take Zuko to the vet like first thing in the morning. Laura can't," he adds, when he sees you about to argue that exact solution, "she told me explicitly, I almost forgot. Dang."

"I mean, I could come to yours, then," you offer. "If - if that's okay. I don't mind if you have to cut out a little early in the morning and leave me hangin'. I can hang."

"I'm sure you can," he says, and you don't even know what kind of double entendre that's supposed to _be_ but even just the flirty timbre of his voice is enough to send a warm red flush sniping up your neck. "But uh, _my_ roommate's not working super late, and also I have two of them," says Brian. "Really just less than ideal. Ugh, I dunno, maybe we should just shoot for like, Saturday, make sure we can schedule something out. When we won't get interrupted during our. Talk." 

"Sure," you say. "I just - kind of don't want to wait."

"I kind of don't want to wait, either," he says. His voice is weighty and intoxicating, _god_, but you can see behind his eyes that he's fighting this battle just the same as you, and that whatever you say, he'll go with.

> ...YEAH, FUCK IT. YOU WANT TO BE WITH HIM TONIGHT. --> PROCEED TO [CHAPTER 30](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21918814/chapters/52317787).  
...YEAH, YOU REALLY SHOULD PICK A BETTER TIME. --> PROCEED TO [CHAPTER 31](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21918814/chapters/52317835).


	30. Chapter 30

"Okay, so, fuck waiting," you decree. You cup your hands around the narrowest part of his waist and kiss him, again, sharp and insistent, giving into your temptation to sink your fingers into that sweater. "You should, you should probably take me home."

"We should probably go right the _fuck_ now," says Brian, even as he's leaning into your touch. "I think if we make it out quick and go straight to my place, we might still beat either of them home, and we can - uh - do things a little out of order, maybe, saaave the talking for later, y'know."

"Sounds perfect. Let's roll." You don't even care that you won't get a chance to swing back by your place for some overnight stuff, at this point: Now that the prospect has been fuckin' carrot-dangled over your head like this, everything else is secondary. If y'all gots ta move, you are ready to _move_.

You and Brian split apart, reluctantly but tactically, to shut down and save all your shit, and grab your coats and bags and thermoses and whatever other ephemera, and reconvene by the elevator. There's almost no one left in the office and everyone who is is very much zoned in on their own work, so you don't think you even raise any suspicion. You're outta there maybe a little faster than is professional, there are probably two or three things you should've wrapped up a little more neatly, but it's the first day back from break and it'll all still be there tomorrow and frankly you just can_not_ be bothered, you're on a mission now. You smack the Door Close button maybe a little more forcefully than is necessary and Brian laughs at you and you lose your mind, a little bit, thinking about how much you love making him laugh, even at something stupid like that, thinking about how much of your lives together so far has consisted of you making him laugh at stupid shit, and him smiling at you gorgeously like he is right now, and holy shit you cannot make out with Brian David Gilbert in the work elevator, the work holiday party was bad _enough_, but - 

The door dings open onto the lobby, and you take about two steps out of the elevator before something absolutely terrible happens, which is that the curse you invoked by even thinking the word _frankly_ comes crashing down on your head in the form of Allegra, standing right there, between you and the front door.

"Oh, hey, you two!" she says, grinning brightly. Of course. She's always hanging around almost as late as you two are, even in the other Vox offices now, so of course she's still in the building, and she strides right over to you. "Oooh, Bribri, your hair's getting long again," she tells him, gesturing a little. "How was your guys's holidays? Did Santa bring you anything nice or were you too naughty?"

"Got this sweater," Brian says perfunctorily, indicating the sliver of his torso that's visible through the open front of his coat. "Real comfy."

"Nice, nice," she says. "How 'bout you, Patrick?"

Her eyes catch yours and there's an infuriating fire in them that's unmistakable: _she's doing this on purpose_. Fuck, of _course_, she's the only one who knows explicitly that you were into Brian circa the party, that you are possibly still into Brian, and she's also the only person who can consistently get you dead to rights about literally anything. You're sure she can see the energy bouncing between you and him as you struggle to find a place for your hands (coat pockets, please, god, that has to be the right answer) and Brian bobs a little on the balls of his feet, both of you listing unsubtle as hell toward the front door. You're also sure that if you so much as give her even two percent of the goddamn _time of day_ that she will be even more just exquisitely insufferable about it for basically all of time. Which she _knows, fuck her_, her eyebrow arching toward you as the amount of time it's taken you to answer her question becomes incriminatingly long, so you - 

Sigh, and engage. "I'm like, the king of Amazon gift cards now," you tell her, "got all them Bezos bucks. Bought myself some snazzy new audio equipment and a lil igloo Charlie can go inside."

"Aww," says Allegra, "I bet that's adorable. Send pics!"

"Yeah, I don't think he really understands what it's for. So far the only time I've seen him touch it he just sat on top of it." You laugh, and it physically pains you. "Maybe if it - if it turns out to be really totally useless you can see if Zuko is more interested," you tell Brian.

"If it smells even remotely like another cat, Zuko will pee on it and then destroy it, possibly not in that order," he says. "Especially any time this week. That's part of the vet appointment, he's still wigged out from the holiday travel, we wanna make sure he's cool."

Allegra pouts, so cutesy that your blood boils, she's the _devil_. "Oh nooo, buddy! I don't think I ever told you, I _loved_ the Unraveled with him, the whole pet HP thing, I did my cactus and it was - "

"A rogue, yeah," says Brian. "No, you did, we talked about this, I think." He looks like he's gonna leap out of his skin; he shoots you a panicked look that you hope is way, way more covert in actuality than it looks like to you, and you do your best to convey _dude, I know_ with your eyes alone. 

"Oh yeahhh," she says. "Maybe that was at the Christmas party." Her gaze sliiides from him to you as she says it, and you purse your lips all the way into your fucking mouth, and just _wince_ with it.

"Allegra, please," you finally say, soft and barely audible, unable to even look at her.

"Wow, okay, fuckin' rude," she says. "I was just _trying_ to catch up with my two _buddies_ after the holidays but if y'all are just gonna blow me off, if that's all the more I matter to you - " Yeah, you're done with her bullshit. You're already zooming toward the door again, which seems to break the spell for Brian, too, and he's hot on your heels. "_Allegra will remember that,_ fuckers!" she yells after you, and when you turn to look, you catch Brian giving her the finger, and now _you're_ laughing at _him_ and that makes you lose your mind, too, how easy it comes out, and how fucking bad you just wanna be at his apartment with him in your lap already, jesus. You stumble out into the cold and beeline it to the subway. 

His MetroCard won't swipe. 

"Are you _kidding_ me," he curses, soft and grumbly, and he tries running it three more times but every time it just beeps out _SWIPE CARD AGAIN AT THIS TURNSTILE_ and it won't rotate him through. You, in the most miserable configuration possible, have already made it through, and are hovering on the other side now, waiting for him. 

"Just take mine and swipe it again," you say. "Or fuck it, I'll just open the wholeass door for you, fuck the man - "

"Okay, but Jonah's girlfriend did that back in October one time we went out and the - the fucking _metro cops_ came and busted her and fined her _and_ Jonah each like a hundred dollars," says Brian. "Just - oh my god I know I know but just hang on, I'm just gonna go get a new one. Save my spot." He leans over the unmoving turnstile and kisses you on the cheek, and that's, okay, yikes, that's some incredibly En Why Cee cute romance bullshit, and it mollifies you for long enough that he's able to slip away and go wrestle with the card machine. In the meantime, you make the mistake of peering down the staircase to the platform, and you do, in fact, see the train you need pull in, and fill up, and leave again, all before Brian can finally get a card that works and pass on through to you. You don't tell him this; he's already mad enough at the MTA, you don't need to make it worse, you will shoulder this one. But also, like, _fuck_.

You do manage to find some spots to sit down, at least, and you tangle your hands together on the chunky wooden homeless-person-hating armrest between you, his leg still jigging up and down, you just staring into space zoning out looking at the train tracks. There's a lil rat buddy down there, you hope he's doing okay. You're not, personally, you're going fucking insane. But soon your train has finally arrived again, and you and Brian crowd yourselves on and get seats, blessedly, and plug the fuck in for the eight or so stops you still have to go. At least now you can sit fully flush with him, his thigh to your thigh and his hand tangled in your hand, inside the pocket of his coat, because his pockets are bigger and deeper and also you just want to be closer to his body. You're absolutely allergic to PDA and even this is farther than you'd typically go but you are having an out of body experience with how bad you want to get back to his house. Which is of course why the train suddenly starts experiencing some iconic MTA delays about two-thirds of the way there.

"This is the worst timeline," Brian says.

All told, it takes you over half an hour longer than it should to get from the office to Brian's apartment, by which time you are not sure you are a human being anymore. This is the explanation you offer for why you _pounce_ on him the moment the door is shut behind you, cupping his face in both hands and pressing his mouth up against yours till he gets the picture and starts kissing, and you're still wearing your coats but you're both trying to kick your shoes off no-hands as you drift slowly deeper into the apartment, which is a fucking dumbass maneuver on your part that definitely won't work because you're in your big shitty boots, but his mouth just tastes so _good_ and _warm_ and you're kissing over half an hour's worth of kisses into him all at once, his soft talented tongue and his cold hands sliding around between your coat and your shirt and - 

"Ohmygod," he gasps out all at once, "holy shit, I think we made it. Jonah!!" he shouts, _so_ close to your face, god, but there's no answer, Jonah or otherwise. Well, there's a faint little squawk noise that you identify, after a moment, as Zuko, but Brian just breathes out "yeah, fuck yeah," and affixes his mouth to yours again, and you stop giving a shit about much of anything else.

You let Brian push and sway and grope you toward his room, shedding your coats strategically as you pass the sofa and can drop them off, living your best rom-com cliche lives. You finally get your boots off at the threshold of his bedroom and then he shoves you back into it, kicks the door closed, and wastes no time plunging both his hands into the back pockets of your jeans. 

"Patrick," he sighs, hot damp breath against the hollow of your throat, and as he kisses back up into your mouth all you can do is nod your head a little, in full agreement. You loop your arms around his shoulders and hold him as close as you can, and his hips shift a little into yours, his hands squeezing at your ass still, the shape of his cock hard and obvious where he lines up along your hip. 

Barring a few interruptions, it's nearly beat-for-beat an identical match to your hookup in December - the antsy train-ride home, the stumbling, groping, kissing, grinding, the bright sweet taste of his mouth against yours in a dark, comfortable-intimate bedroom. The thing is - 

The thing is, though - 

"Brian, I." Your voice breaks, on the sentiment, because you don't exactly know what the rest of that sentence was supposed to be. But you touch him, and he touches you, and every warm press of his hands into your skin as you undress each other, as you map each other's bodies out, scraping through the hair on his chest, curling into the sweep of his tongue across your nipple - all of it carries on it the weight of _I like you an irresponsible amount_. Every place your skin connects is a glowing beacon reminding you that you are gonna fuck now, and _talk_ later, and that talk is probably going to be just - remarkably productive. The kind of talk that you come out the other side of with a god-danged relationship-status-on-Facebook-if-you-believed-in-that-bullshit boyfriend. You're not hooking up with your coworker. You are having sex with your _boyfriend_. Oh, fucking hell, okay.

You're in just your underwear, now, and Brian is sitting up on the bed and has tugged you straddled into his lap and he is _still_ touching your ass, hohh dang, his hand squeezing at kind of the whole thing across the split, his middle finger just kind of, just kind of slotted in there, through your briefs. "Pat," he whispers, and there's a question in it, and his hand rolls, and his finger _drags_, up the crack, down inside, oh, fuck. 

"Yeah," you answer, nodding, "yes," sucking his tongue into your mouth, hitching your cock into his, "Brian, fuck yes." The idea is compelling as _fuck_, which surprises you a tiny bit before your sex-addled brain remembers that compulsory heteronormativity is garbage and also that Brian's cock is fucking amazing. You ride your hips down into him, grey-cotton-on-teal-cotton, cocks bumping and leaking together, your forearms braced straight-on across his shoulders for leverage and his warm, confident hands skittering up the stretch of your ribs, his mouth tracing hungry patterns across your collarbones. You - fuck, you make _yourself_ moan, just thinking about having him _inside_, today, in this of all moments - it's such a bold, perfect, intimate move, it feels like. Like it matches. Fuck, you can't believe just _earlier today_ you were too chickenshit to talk to him about it, were agonizing over your last hookup like it was some kind of national crisis, and now you're practically _begging_ for his cock, you're gonna have to unpack that later - when you _talk_ about it - 

Wait, why is he slowing down and not touching you as much.

"My," he says, and he sounds like - despair - "Pat all my condoms are latex I think. I." He's panicking, again, even as he's still kissing at you. "Dear sweet god, no."

"It's okay it's okay," you reassure him, "I have one - in my, in my wallet I think, I just - where's my bag, is it out in the front still, I can - "

"_Jonah!_" he yells again, top of his lungs, and you startle so hard you nearly fall off his lap, jesus. He gives it a beat, then - "Still no answer. Okay go, run, run as fast as you can with a boner, oh my god - "

You run. You dart out of his room, nearly tripping over an agitated closed-door-hating Zuko in the process, and dive into your bag and find your wallet. "Bless up," you murmur, because it's _there_, and you scan the whole thing just to double-triple-check out of paranoia because you can never be _too_ sure, for a contact allergy, for something that's going in your ass - 

_oh god oh god Brian's going to fuck you yes yes **yes** \- _

\- and you. Promptly. Sink to the floor. Have an existential crisis. Smash your hand to your face. Along with the condom. Which expired in fucking _two thousand and eighteen_. 

"Pa-at?" Brian calls, soft and slow and tentative, from his room. "Uh, you - coming back?" So you drag yourself to your feet, drag your feet, lean in his doorway - still half-hard, despite it all, but banging your head into the doorframe. You brandish it in his direction.

"It's two fucking years out of date."

"Pat, you are lying to me right now."

You whip it toward him on the bed, crawl a couple inches further in, shut the door behind you for like, at least _some_ fuckin' discretion. "Fine print. Last last April. Are we in hell?" you ask. "Like, did we just die in some snowstorm last week and go to hell and now we're dead, and suffering, because we like, didn't suck capitalism's dick, and, and ate shellfish, and now - "

"Ohh my _gooddd_," Brian wails, falling flat on his back in the bed, pressing the backs of his hands to his eyes. "Okay, okay, we can - Pat, it's fine, we can just do, uh, like, non, non-condom, stuff - "

"But I really _wanted_ you to fuck me," you say, petulant even to your own ears, and Brian's breath all whooshes out of him on a _fuuuuck, Pat Gill_, and yeah, okay, you can hear how that sounded, on the replay. But you're not gonna take it back.

"Welp, okay, so we run out and get more. There's a bodega close by enough that should have the uh. The goods."

"Okay, well, get your clothes on, then."

"Hold up, both of us don't have to go, you could just - "

"Fuck no, if I'm running around horny through the streets of New York, so are you, jackass. C'mon." 

"We are living in a fucking 1980s farce play right now," he whines, but he does seem to be tugging on his pants, trying to shuffle them up over his own boner that hasn't completely gone down yet, so that's something, at least.

It's just that you're both about halfway dressed when the front door bangs open, and you hear the distinct giggling of Brian's sister and another person, and they sound like - 

Well, they sound like exactly where you and Brian were at about ten minutes ago. You hear the thumping of shoes coming off clumsy-quick, the humming and shuffling of two people vocalizing while also totally sucking face. Damn, sound really carries in Brian's place, huh. It's, uh, pretty embarrassing to think about how you must have sounded, now that you're coming at it from the other side. Woof.

"That'll be Laura," Brian says, and you can _hear_ it in his voice, the way he's given up. Shirtless, wearing his jeans, he leans forward and sets his elbows to his knees and presses his face into his hands. "Pat, I. I don't think I can bone down while knowing that my sister is also actively boning down. I just don't think I have it _in me_."

You sit next to him, and knock your shoulder into his, commiserating with heavy emphasis on the _misery_. "Yeah," you sigh out, finally, "I think we're about done."

"_Fuck me_," groans Brian. "I wanted to do this so _bad_. You have to know, those are the best jeans you own. You gotta wear them all the time please."

"_Patrick will remember that_," you promise.

"Okay, game plan," he says. "Fucking circle up. We're gonna get some non-expired condoms."

"_Yes_, christ."

"We are gonna take the L on this one, and I will see you at work tomorrow after I get done with Zuko's vet adventure. I'm gonna wear an old shirt that's too tight that makes me look really hot."

"You're speaking my language, Gilbert."

"We are gonna wait till Saturday morning when I know for a fact Laura has an all-day nanny gig and Jonah promised to help his friend move." Brian crowds harder into you, rests his warm palm on the inside curve of your thigh, breathes into your ear. "I am gonna fuck you right here in broad daylight, Pat Gill, and then I'm gonna make you take me out for pancakes."

Ohh, shit. "D--deal," you stutter out, letting your eyes roll shut.

"Now get the hell out of here while you still can, so I can put my headphones on and cry a little. Fuck, I can't believe this is why Laura said I had to take Zuko in tomorrow, she _played_ me." He kisses your neck, then your cheekbone, then your mouth, and you wrap him up and kiss him back, just as much as you can stand it, knowing you've still gotta get dressed and leave. "See y'later, Pat."

"G'night Brian," you tell him. 

You get your shirt, and your shoes, and your coat back on. You let Brian walk you to the door, and plant one last sweet kiss on you as you head out. You throw your traitor condom in the trashcan out in front of his building, and make your defeated way home. 

You think about how you're probably just gonna call him your boyfriend anyway, even though you never actually managed to talk about it. You think he probably won't mind. (You think: okay, you're thirty-two, there's gotta be a less goof-ass word than _boyfriend_.)

You get, suddenly, a pretty fucking good brainstorm of an idea, walking up the sidewalk to your building, a shitty little snow flurry starting to kick up around you. You text him:

_>hey addendum to your gameplan  
>Modification_

_>oh? do tell_

_>a hint is that it starts with S and rhymes with "shreksting"_

_>"shreksting" also starts with S_

_>oh. Fuck_

_>it's okay, just lmk when you're good to start touching your cock for me, gorgeous_

You take the stairs three at a time.

> **IT'S THE THOUGHT THAT COUNTS!!** You and BRIAN will get your shit together soon, but for now, your adventure has reached its end. A great time to start all over again at chapter 1! Or skip back a couple moves and make different choices! It's all fun and games in GILL OR BE GILLED!


	31. Chapter 31

Where you find the strength, staring into Brian's bright cocky sparkling eyes and still feeling the plush of his sweater phantom-status on your palms, you have no fucking clue, but you take a deep breath and steel yourself and say, "We should - we should probably wait, huh."

Brian groans, a little, slides his hand back up through the swoop of his hair and twists it there and holds, but he's nodding, albeit very reluctantly. "Mannn, I hate being an adult about things," he says, laughing a little. "But - you're right. We'd have to go, like, _right_ now, straight there, it'd be a whole - a whole thing. We should get all our li'l ducks in a row."

"Buncha little ducks," you agree. "Okay, so like, what's, what's good for you? Is tomorrow night gonna be better, or - ?"

Brian's eyes swivel up and sideways, and he slips his hand free of his hair, thinking. "How about - whoa, okay, nontraditional - but how 'bout Saturday morning?" You can see the mental math he's doing behind his eyes, catching like a match. "Laura's nannying all day, and I'm pretty sure Jonah's supposed to be out, too, so you could - come to my place, right, and I think it's supposed to snow... We could just order up a bunch of greasy breakfast food and get real cozy." He grins, beams up at you, sweet and shit-eating. "Just - spend a few hours in my room without leaving, really, really hole up in there."

God, a giant pile of hashbrowns and Brian in bed, warm against the shitty January outside - "That sounds fucking perfect," you tell him, and you've never meant something so hard. 

He reaches out and cuffs you in the upper arm a little with the flat of his hand. "All right then, cowboy, it's a date," he says, with a little click of his teeth. "I'm gonna go - delete some more emails and then get the hell out of here."

"Good fucking idea," He's moving back toward the bullpen, but you stop him one more time before - "Brian?"

"Yyyeah?"

"Um. _Thank_ you."

His smile could power a city block. "Pleasure's all mine, Pat Gill."

You watch him go, as he returns to his desk, presumably to delete more emails. You slink back to your spot, too, and start saving up and shutting down all your shit, getting ready to head home, thinkin' 'bout the leftover noodles you're gonna slam and the remaining Steam giftcard money you've got left from Christmas burning a hole in your digital pocket, but also thinking about - 

Brian, and tossing glances over at Brian every few seconds, and he's smiling, and you're smiling. It's like you're trying to cram into these last few minutes all the glimpses of him you could've been stealing all day had your head not been stuffed so firmly up your ass about the whole thing. Stupid. It's just absolutely proof of how incredible he is that he's still willing to give you a chance, to let you make it up to him, after your total head-assery behavior up to this point; and also, maybe, kind of, a small part of you acknowledges, maybe proof that like. That he really is getting just as caught up in the whole thing as you are. 

Oh, god, you think to yourself, with a stupid suffering-embarrassed grin on your face pressed flat into your desk, after letting Brian leave first so you didn't try to do something totally fucking dumb like start making out with him in the elevator - turns out you _like_-like each other. 

And now you've got a date. Saturday morning.

If you thought you were going to survive until Saturday morning with everything just going totally fine and normal, you are clearly an even bigger idiot than was previously understood to be true. 

You roll up to the office Friday at what you consider actually a pretty reasonable time. It's weird to only have two days between the break and the weekend again, the holiday schedule cookie crumbled a little stupid this year, but you're at least _trying_ to get some work done, sort of in a prelim way - looking over your schedule to see where it jives with other people's, makin' timelines, blocking stuff off with Simone and Tara for scripting sessions and shoots and edits. You think about firing Jenna a covert email about Overboard, about the future of Cyberpunk, but it's early yet and you're scared to jinx it. All the big start-of-year stuff is going down on Monday, so right now everyone's just sort of easing back into being a Working Professional, mostly, so you do, like, nothing that has a concrete visible outcome, it's all very abstract and ephemeral. Which is lowkey your least favorite shit, but you don't feel like you're doing _nothing_, anyway.

Until Brian gets in, finally, after Zuko's vet appointment, after a light dusting of snow has already begun, and he walks in with the tawny swoop of his hair sparkling with half-melted flakes, and shucks his coat to reveal that faded blue-and-red raglan shirt that's inexorably tied to _new shoes?_ in your head. It's an older shirt of his, you know, it predates his time at Polygon at least, and it _clings_ to him now, pulled tight across his broad chest and the bunch of his shoulders. He catches your eye, across the bullpen, and quirks you an excited, closed-mouthed, brow-wagglin' smile, but that's all. He really is just the fuckin' - pinnacle of professionalism and tact, it turns out, especially compared to how hard you're finding it not to just _stare_ at him. 

You are _such_ a dumbass: It's literally only, just now, slowly dawning on you, that you're going to have to make it through the limbo period of the next twenty-four hours or so before your - your uh, _date_ \- and that a good portion of that is going to be time you still have to spend around him, with him, in a non Pat-and-Brian capacity. The moments in the break room yesterday felt so suspended in time, this surreal crystalization of shit that had been so nebulous before, when you refused to let it take shape in your mind, in your heart. Now that it's - _real_ \- now that it's real it seems hyperreal, like Brian with his easy clever smile and shining eyes, the graceful but frenetic coiled-spring movements of his body across the office space, (his legs and his ass in those crips dark jeans, shit has his ass always looked that amazing, yes probably you idiot you've just never stared at it before because that wasn't a thing, you'd never seen it fully naked and inches from your face, never touched it with both hands, oh fucking christ do not get a boner at work you are thirty-two,) is the most beautiful distraction designed specifically for you, to prevent you from getting any work done. Fucking sue you, okay, it's been ages since you _like_-liked somebody like this, it shouldn't be surprising that it's turning you into a fucking giddy horny teen about it. It is still surprising you a little, though. Your leg bounces under your desk and shakes the whole row of them, and Susana shoots you a patient but irritated look down the bank of computers till you school yourself into stopping. Which you only manage to do because Brian's out of your line of sight, for now.

Your only consolation is that almost every time you catch yourself watching, he catches you watching, because you've also caught _him_ watching, because he is also watching _you_. When "watching" is not a word anymore, you're pretty sure it means that other people are absolutely gonna start noticing this clownery sooner rather than later, and you think, Okay, well, it's almost lunchtime, maybe if the two of you cut out you can - 

He's not taking a lunch, because he was out all morning at the vet. _Fuck_. 

So it's when you're standing aimlessly in the kitchen, trying to figure out if there's enough here that you can cobble together or if you should really just like run to the corner and get a bagel, or something, just fully spacing out staring at some cabinets and trying to ignore the burst of Brian and Simone's laughter that's all you can hear through the closed door they're on the other side of, that's when - 

You don't love how obvious you're being at work, you don't want to really talk about it with _work people_ until you've had the real-shit conversation with Brian himself first, but you gotta talk to _somebody_, you need an off-ramp ASAP, some kind of distraction to help you power through, so that's when - 

You grab a snack-size packet of Chex Mix and a bottle of tea that you think is Brian's, actually, but there's three or four and you're sure he won't notice or care, and you text - The Group Chat™. 

(Well. Three people total is still a group, right?)

_**PG**  
>okay I don't ordinarily do this but Emergency  
>thought yall should be the first to know: Me + Brian, For Real  
>we've got Planz but they're not till tomorrow so I just need a void I can scream into_

_**TB**  
>awww boys!! CONGRATZ!!  
>this was at that party wasn't it i knew some stuff went down in that fort_

_**AF**  
>oh my GAWWDD I thought I told y'all keep this ish so so far away from me  
>I don't wanna know a goddamn thing about bdg's donger!! don't put this in our sacred zone_

_**PG**  
>ABSOLUTELY NO DONG TALK, jesus  
>I took that blood oath same as the two of youz  
>I just need a distraction_

_**AF**  
>distract yourself elsewhere I'm out_

You don't get the _Allegra Frank has removed herself from the group_ notif, but it does fall dead pretty abruptly, and you second-guess a little, because like. Okay, maybe she's serious. That's uh, that's gonna put a damper on your plans, here, a little bit. Still, you cling to the moment's reprieve even that small exchange gave you, combined with how Brian's still occupied with Simone, crunching your snacks at your desk and scrubbing through some more of this old Squaresoft footage you need to start clipping apart. You give it a little while longer. The group remains silent. You text, _jesus christ is it always this annoying to have feelings for someone._ Allegra answers with that series of screens from Always Sunny, _you remember feelings, right?_, and holy shit that stings, but yeah, she got you. It has been, kind of uh. Kind of like. Years.

You give it a little while longer. Brian slips straight from his thing with Simone to another thing, somewhere else, you can't track. He does it by walking directly behind you where you're hunched into your computer, headphones on, hadn't yet noticed him, and brushing his hand across the whole span of your shoulders. Jesus, you jump out of your _skin_, but then with a flirty little half-spin-hop and a wink your direction he's gone again, and you are gonna _die_ if he starts doing this shit on purpose.

It's about three in the afternoon when your phone lights up again, and it's not the group, this time. It's just Thomas, directly.

_>hey buddy sorry about earlier i was in the middle of some stuff!   
>if leg's gonna be a big wet blanket about it im just gonna hitcha up here  
>i got some information u are possibly very interested in in light of recent developments_

That is - beyond cryptic as fuck, but also just just barely parsible enough that it sends a bolt of cold anticipation up your spine, gets your leg jigging again under the desk. You hit _save_ like, six times on all of your shit, to make sure you don't have an out-of-body episode and fuck yourself over, and then, on second thought, you just get up and take a stroll around the bullpen, kicking some of your extra energy out through your legs, striding arbitrarily toward the break room just for want of a concrete destination.

_>I am dying here please explain_

_>hehehehehe  
>ok well im just saying me n bri haven't spent a LOT of time together buuutt  
>at samit's wedding  
>some champagne was had_

_>Oh jesus christ_

_>some lips were loosened  
>some predilections were revealed_

_>Thombo with the SAT words this is gonna be good shit isn't it  
>I'm lowkey afraid_

_>don't be afraid it's not that serious  
>just like... if u and brian are doing stuff now  
>it turns out, i know some stuff that brian likes to do  
>bri hacks ;)))_

Jesus _christ_. Thomas unloads a few more texts onto you and your breath gets tighter and wonkier with each one, taking it all in - losing your _mind_, in the break room, (finally finding that energy drink you'd been looking for, which was for some reason in the freezer, the can totally blown out and destroyed now,) yes, but also...taking it all in. Factoring it in, maybe, to whatever plans you were tentatively forming for tomorrow morning, a little _Patrick will remember that_ pop-up blooming in the top-left of the cavity of your chest. God, the waiting is torture, but also - if you hadn't waited, _this_ conversation, this new knowledge you're acquiring, never would have happened. And miracle of fucking miracles, having this secret mission, side-objective, to hold onto, kind of zaps your brain from hugely distracted to just hugely, _hugely_ focused. The next time you see him, Brian flashes you another sultry smile, and this time you manage one _back_, toothy, excited, shivering with (Tim Curry) anticipation. 

You just have to make it through today. 

\-------

You wake up Saturday morning with a sharp inhale through your nose, stretching long above your head, already apologizing to Charles as you dislodge him from his spot against the small of your back. 

Y'got _plans_, man.

You're due at Brian's by ten-thirty, theoretically, but you're thinking he's maybe not going to complain too much if you happen to be early. Still, this _is_ early, especially for you on a Saturday, and also you wanna make damn sure you don't fuck this up, so you've got some, y'know. Preparations. So you do go on a fucking scavenger hunt across your whole bedroom to find the shirt that plots the most acceptably on the graph of clean vs comfy to wear vs nice, maybe, for someone else to look at you wearing. You do actually bother to like, floss and use mouthwash, and shit, and not just brush your teeth, and you use the nice soap in your shower because, _you dunno_, maybe it smells better somehow. You do shave, a little, but not all the way because you remember what Thomas told you, and you do bring the portable charge-pak for your phone, and you feed Charlie and clean his box and take out the trash but then you do, on your way out, go out of your way through the snow two blocks down the other direction from the train stop you need to go to the _good_ quick-mart and buy, yes, the largest bottle of water they have and a brand spankin' new box of latex-free condoms, because you'll be damned if you're gonna get caught with -

\--Well, there's no good idioms for that that don't actually apply to the stuff you actually maybe want to do today, huh. 

You knock on Brian's door at roughly twenty after, and anything nice you'd tried to do with your hair has been completely undone by the wind and the nasty sprinkle of old snow sloughing onto off awnings and scaffoldings and the clinging heat of the subway, but Brian answers wearing just that same soft new sweater and some camel-colored boxer briefs and some socks, and he's got half a pancake sticking out of his mouth for the bit, and he looks _hilarious_ and so, so fucking gorgeous. You give him the laugh he wants and let him tug you inside.

"Got a head-start on the breakfast stuff, huh," you say, as you're worming out of your coat.

"You weren't supposed to be here yet," he confesses, "I was trying to get a round in without you."

"Holding out on me!" Your boots are next, and he's not making it easy, either, staying crowded into your space, his mostly-soft (but hoo, not, you don't think, all-the-way soft) cock right in your eyeline as you bend down to get the laces loose. "I see how it is."

"Look, I'm gonna need the energy," he says. You resurface, down to just your henley and jeans and socks, to make enough eye contact with him as he says that for a shivery thrill to course through you because like, okay, you _get_ it. What he means, by that. And it's - a _lot_.

But Brian, sweet Brian David Gilbert can never resist doubling-down on a joke to lampshade it, and adds, "For fuckin'. I need the fuckin' energy." 

You grin and let him wrap you up in his arms, low around your waist, hands sneaking down to your ass, your own kind of coming up to circle his head and shoulders. "Weren't we gonna - talk?" you ask, not even bothering to keep the tease out of your voice.

"Talking is rescheduled for after you make me come my brains out," he says, and he shoves his tongue in your mouth. 

You let him manhandle you back into his bedroom. You can hear the cranky sounds of Zuko trapped in Laura's room, presumably so he doesn't eat whatever food Brian's left out in the kitchen for y'all to eat later. You give into your Thursday temptations of just _sinking_ your hands into that soft green sweater, to grope hungrily all along Brian's body underneath, the sweet dip where his chest tapers into his waist. Brian sucks noisily on your tongue, the sweetest warmest little moans and gasps, and keeps his hands planted firmly on your ass, at least until you start undressing. Then you start undressing. Then you're falling back on his bed, in your socks and underwear, the rasp of his hairy legs tangled in yours and the warm press of his hand between your shoulderblades, his other one holding your face, your cocks nudging into each other, and there's snow on his windowledge and soft shitty January light filtering in and the house smells just a little bit like diner sausage and it's. It's exactly how he said it would be. You could kiss him for hours or you could fuck him right now, or quit and go eat some food and come back to it later, and every part of it is - perfect. It's hard to make yourself even think the word because it seems kind of extreme, but just right now, it is. 

You do remember, suddenly, a way to make it even better.

You roll a little, so Brian's more decidedly underneath you instead of just up against you on the bed, so you're a little more on top. You drag your mouth away from his and down the long, long column of his neck, to mouth wetly there, really dragging your nose and your teeth and the stubble of your chin in and making him feel it. He squirms, a little, and then when your hand comes up to stroke at the other side of his neck, touching along his pulse point and all the way down to his collarbone and back, moving in tandem, he squirms a _lot_.

"Patrick," he hisses. His hips bump hard up into yours, his cock grinding into the hollow of your hipbone.

"Neck recognize neck," you whisper, and he snorts a little laugh, that cuts off into a moan when you dig your thumb in. He clutches at your back along your shoulders and just holds on. 

It's when you deliberately take his hand and move it, encouraging him to sink his fingers into your hair and grip and hold on and _tug_, that he clocks you. 

"Geez, Pat," he whines. "How did you - you hacked right into my, my secret livejournals, here, you've learned all my - " He thrusts, up, again, and you thrust back _down_, pinning his hips beneath yours just a little bit harder than you need to. It makes his hand jerk in your hair, and _you_ moan, and thank whatever slutty, slutty angel is watching over the two of you that your shit turned out to be freakishly compatible in this regard. "_Oh!_ fuck you. Oh, Pat - hang on, _wait_. Wait. Thomas."

"No, it's Pat, you were right the first time."

"Fuck, the wedding, fuck, I'm a _clown_," he wails. "Oh god you are cheating, this is cheat codes." 

"Oops," you apologize, not sorry at all. 

"Oh, god, this is - k-kind of embarrassing," he whines, though he - doesn't seem to be complaining, as you continue to maul his neck, pin his hips, hold him close. "Telling you all that shit I told him about my big crush on you, that was so _long_ ago, it's been months, this - "

He stops, because you stopped. Because. 

Because Thomas didn't tell you that.

"C...rush?" you say, sitting up a little so you can look at him better. Neither of you have your glasses on, so it's a little out of whack, but you can see on his face, that he's serious. And also that he's realizing, just as suddenly as you are, that Thomas might have told you some little tips and tricks, might have texted you _yo the reason he hates his neck touched is because it makes him mad horny_ or _he wants to top but he wants to have to earn it from you, yknow ;)_ or _let him pull your hair!! pat u like that shit too!!_ but he had the beautiful discretion to never once mention - 

"Crush," Brian confirms, his whole face scrunching in mortification, his body twisting sideways under yours. "Pat Gill, you gotta know, I'm one whole idiot for you. Have been for just - for just a real long time. Fuck, please don't let that be a thing that makes this weird, please just k--"

You kiss him, obviously. 

Then you leave him hanging, and he squawks after you, as you remember you left the condoms in your bag, and run out to grab them, picking up a handful of lukewarm home fries on your way back and scarfing them down out of the palm of your hand like a horse. For energy. 

You can talk about it later, after you make him come his brains out.

> **SWEET!!** What a lovely adventure you've managed to have with BRIAN, and now you're at the end! You can start over again, if you like, at chapter 1, or backtrack a few steps if you think you'd like to make other choices. Thanks for playing GILL OR BE GILLED!


	32. Chapter 32

The next couple weeks are... Bad.

You know everyone can tell, too. You go surly, hunkering down and doing mostly editing stuff, art and design stuff, completing projects only when it's asked of you. Your already low social media profile becomes perfunctory at best. You get your Twitch streams up and running again mid-January, because you need something to hang onto that's separate from the office, and that helps, but even your subscribers mention here and there in the chat that you seem a little quiet. It just feels like you've got at least forty percent of your brain and your guts perpetually dedicated to trying to process this shit. You _are_ trying, but it's work, and in the meantime it's taking a lot out of you and your energy is flagging.

Brian, meanwhile, is _all_ energy. He goes manic at work, bounding from thing to thing whether someone asks him to or not. He pitches like five different concepts to Tara and she greenlights exactly zero of them; one of them does show up, albeit in a modified, shorter and stranger version, on his personal channel, the first new one in almost a year. 

(You watch it a few times, actually, because it's _funny_, because of course it is, he's a genius. You leave him a comment that says _ok love to see new content but when is the edible pokemon unravelled_, and he answers with a text that says _i'd tell you to suck my dick except you already did._)

He clocks too many hours, and you think you overhear Clayton making him leave early one Friday, to take a load off, to get some sleep. It hurts, a little, to watch him go so insane, but you stay out of it - you took yourself off Unraveled, let Clayton and Jenna handle all of that for now, and you agreed that you'll be in the January Overboard and he'll be in the February ep and that'll be that. And it occurs to you _then_ \- over a month later, still no word on Cyberpunk, scheduling other games in the interim - that you might be more concerned about what this mess could mean for Vang0 Bang0 and Burger Chainz's future than yours and Brian's. And that that probably means that maybe - maybe things are gonna be okay. 

Instead, you're...working a lot more with Jeff, actually. He's in the office much more frequently now, hashing things out with Julia and the rest of the merch design team (oh crap! y'all have a _merch design team_), and he always keeps you in the loop, wants to talk to you about art stuff you've been working on, trends you've noticed. Says he kind of only knows how to do _cute_ and he needs your input for that edgy, manly nerd POV. You laugh and shake your head and realize it's on the tip of your tongue to just say _yeah, well, you do **cute** pretty well, so._ But you hear Brian yelling something (it's Simone's name, you hear her honking, too) from the other end of the bullpen, and it still makes you just a little bit antsy in a way that sends your knee jigging under the table, so you don't. Just push your smile wider, when he looks at you, and nudge your chair closer to his, and spend your subway ride home thinking about - tequila shots in Clayton's cramped kitchen, sucking lime straight from the thick of his hand. 

You _think_ Jeff is single. And you _know_ he's cute - you were sat across from each other for Overboard, getting your asses kicked by Simone at Potion Explosion, and no fewer than five comments under the video are either implicitly or explicitly about you and Jeff having _UST_. (You think it was probably the part where he threw a marble at your head, and you managed to fucking catch it like Superman with a bullet, and Simone and Karen _screamed_ but Jeff just stared at you, awestruck, his mouth wide open and so, so pink.) It's March, and the weather is finally thinking about just being cold and gross instead of _insanely_ cold and gross, and you're shaking off those seasonal affective disorder blues and feeling just a little optimistic.

He invites you to come sit in on a recording for his podcast, and now you're maybe a _lot_ optimistic.

It's _fun_. You've done some podcast stuff here and there, although it's never fully been your jam, and you weren't supposed to record anything, just watch, but Jeff has you get in there doing a goblin NPC for about twenty minutes of gameplay or so, yelling about rubies and then dying a little pathetically. It leaves the flavor of Gill and Gilbert rolling unpleasantly around in your mouth a little bit, maybe, but you swallow it back down and have a lot of fun with Jeff's D&D friends. And then, when the recording session is over, the rest of them leave, but you... Don't, it turns out.

"You want something to drink?" says Jeff, wandering into his kitchen and leaving you sitting on the sofa. His apartment is _nice_ \- at least, like, one tier above your place, he's got matching curtains and furniture that isn't from Ikea, and shit - and it's been fun getting to know his space a little better. "Talking so much gets me so dehydrated, especially doing the voices."

"Yeah, like a water or a tea is cool, thanks," you say. He pops back in with two bottles of flavored water. Oh, nice, it's raspberry. He sits real, real close to you on the sofa and twists his open.

You drink in silence for a few beats, and it's awkward enough that it spurs you into just blurting it out. "Look, you know I kind of ate shit with Brian after the holiday party," you tell him, already picking at the label to your water. "I don't want to - I don't think I have it in me to eat shit like that again."

Jeff snorts. "Hell no, Patrick. Contrary to popular belief everybody watched that shit go down, you know? We know. It was always gonna be a mess, because Brian is like, an XL of emotions shoved into a size medium. Nobody who's not ready to get all up in there should even try, it's just gonna be brutal." He smirks at you, his eyes twinkling behind his glasses, and reaches over to place his hand on yours, and stop you from shredding the drink label entirely. "We don't have to get deep like that, baby. We can just fuck, like a _regular_ office hookup."

You _snort_ with laughter, setting the water bottle down on the coffee table and turning to face him better, and he must take that for the go-ahead that it absolutely is, because he plants his hand at your stomach and then slides around the curve of the narrowest part of your waist in a smooth, bold stroke as he leans in to kiss you. Despite the cool water you've both been sippin', his mouth is _hot_ against yours, pressing and searching and seeking, diving right in. It's hard not to just immediately answer in kind, to hold his face to yours, the bristle of his beard against your wide palm. He muffles a squeaky noise or two into your mouth and barely, just barely presses his tongue to your lips before he pulls away, grinning.

"_Okay_, Pat, damn!" he says. "You wanna keep making out on the sofa like horny nerds, or like, we can - uh, we can go to the bedroom - "

"I dunno, I'm kinda into both," you say, with a grin of your own.

You do both. You kiss deep into his mouth here on the sofa, leaning into the bonus of your height advantage a little bit, looming over him in a way that gets him vocal and _very_ squirmy. His hands, when they slide up inside the bottom hem of your shirt and drag at the small of your back, are just as hot as his mouth. The move to the bedroom isn't quite as spicy as it sounded in theory, because you realize very quickly that neither of you have any latex-free condoms, but you regroup, improvise, get him flat on his back with you curled around the side of him as you both jerk off, yourselves and each other, touching, tasting, _learning_. You learn how ticklish he is through his ribs, how responsive his fat cock is to the swirl of your thumb. He learns, regrettably, how easy you are for anyone who pulls your hair. The little hitches of his breath as he gets close are intoxicating, sharp and shaky and fucking gorgeous, and you'd - really like to see that again. 

He doesn't ask you to stay the night, and you don't offer. He kisses you toothily and smacks your ass on your way out, and you laugh, and thank him, for being chill as fuck.

"Thank you for being chill as fuck about all this." You sweep your hand back through your hair. "It's just - it is the biggest fucking relief."

"Oh, absolutely, boy-y," he says, laughing. "I'm not trying to do all that shit, and I don't - I don't think you are either."

"I don't think I am, either," you say, and you realize in the exact moment that you're saying it that - it's true.

And so, in the morning, at work, because you and Jeff don't say anything about it, _no one_ says anything about it. (Well, Jeff tells you later - Simone said something about it. Said y'all two were both _glowing_ with having boned, but she didn't really care beyond wanting to give one or both of you shit about it, and Jeff seemed easier because she knew you were - well. But then she dropped it, and it never became a thing.) It never becomes a thing. Even when he invites you over to his place to talk about merch store stuff and it happens again. Even when you get back involved with Unraveled, camera #2 for the back half of March, and some reshoots run late but Jeff's still in the office so you all go out for drinks and then afterward it happens _again_, at your place this time, and you've got a roommate, sure, but you've also got the good condoms, so you hope Jeff's learned how to be quiet instead of squeaking out those slutty little sounds every time you go anywhere near his ass.

(At the bar, Clayton's hand curved around Brian's waist and he kissed him, just once, before Brian scooted off to grab everyone another round and Clayton ducked bashfully to the restroom. And you thought, _good for them._ And you thought, _thank god that's over._)

> **THANK GOD THAT'S OVER!!** Looks like you overcame your strike-out with BRIAN and found a good thing with JEFF instead! And now your adventure has come to an end. So, if you'd like, head back to chapter 1 to start a new game! Or feel free to backtrack a few steps and make some different choices. Thanks for playing GILL OR BE GILLED!


	33. Chapter 33

First thing's first, you don't think you can do Unraveled anymore, at least not for a little while. It's probably totally cool, uhh, logistically speaking; Jenna's been getting her hand on the ball more the past few episodes, and already she seems to, well. Not that there are _sides_ in this shit, because you just _cannot_ allow it to be something that's a big enough deal that it has sides, fuck, but if there were, Jenna would be on Brian's, you figure. So she and Clayton should definitely have that covered while you have to bail.

It's for that reason that you specifically message Clayton about it, though. You send a fucking _email_, you paper trail it that hard.

_Hey,_ it says, _so for reasons that will become obvious very soon if they are not already, I think it's for the best if I take myself off Unraveled for at least a few episodes. I don't want to go into detail about it really but I think Jenna can handle it. Brian should have the doc that has the most up to date script/edit notes that I would have made. If you need art I can still do that._ You don't sign it, just leave your dumb auto-signature attached at the bottom. You wipe your hand back through your hair and dig back in to the bag of white cheddar Cheetos that's been living next to your keyboard. You do not make the mistake your did, last week, of doing those two actions the other way around. 

Clayton's email response is swift and professional - _I don't think that should be an issue! Jenna's January schedule actually works better for shooting anyway, so we'll go with that_ \- but just a beat or two after that, you get a DM ping on Slack, too. 

_>hey that was a very cool and adult and smart move, :thumbsup:  
>we can get yall on opposite overboards too (no cyberpunk yet :()  
>lol parentheses mouth_

_>lol_, you manage back. He knows, at least. That's probably for the best, even if thinking about it right now sucks major ass. 

After a long pause, and a few more Cheetos:  
_>yeah this is stupid but it's mostly my fault so thank you for understanding and not making a big deal out of it on account of I am just an Idiot_

_>dont worry about it pat  
>just glad youre doing okay :)_

You're...not, exactly, but you're actively trying to get to a place where you are, and Clayton's soft, friendly reassurance is - well, it's _reassuring_, okay. It feels better than you think it should, to feel like - listen there _are no sides in this_, but to feel like Clayton is maybe in your corner, has got your back. Wild how a tiny emoticon smiley-face can go so far. Truly you are living in 2020. 

You keep working on your own shit, and while you're picking away at more incomprehensible Squeenix lore, the mid-January Unraveled (something about time travel, something about Brian's upcoming birthday and getting older and the inevitability of death, it sure is an Unraveled all right) drops without a hitch. Cool. Simone brings the office Potion Explosion for Overboard, which you're pretty sure she only pitched because she wants an excuse to dress like a wizard, and you shrug into your Crystal Thymothy blazer and very deliberately do _not_ think about Gill and Gilbert, and let Jeff crack salacious Harry Potter jokes at you while he throws marbles at your head, and change your mind: Simone brought this game because she knew she could kick everyone's ass at it. But whatever. You crack some joke about the ethics of an _elixir of blind love_ in The Me-Too Era that gets a laugh from Clayton behind the camera, so you waggle your eyebrows into the camera, and can't decide if you hope that stays in or not. 

Not shooting anything with Brian is a little disorienting, because it's basically never happened since he started working here, unless one of you wasn't around. But having Clayton as a constant sort of - mitigates that, a little, and it's a bruise but you're finding it's not a painful one. Just like, one that's that really sick-nasty yellow swamp color.

_>can't wait to see the edit on this one, dude_, you text him.   
_>please tell me I don't look like an absolute ass clown in that blazer_

_>just a partial assclown_, he reassures you.  
_>its a shame you did so well in the practice round and then just got your ass kicked in the actual video_

_>such is my way alas alack  
>I'm not meant to be a wizard, I think, much better at melee fighting_

_>Parm :flexed_biceps:_

He always answers so quickly, when you text him. Always jokes you back, if you're joking - never really tries to one-up you, yes-and you, but still always meets you where you stand. You're not sure what it says about you, how much of a hit of comfort and validation that gives you, but you don't think you like it very much. You try not to think about it. Instead, you accidentally find yourself thinking about the night at his house, at the party, when his fire escape felt like that same comfort, cool and smoky, his hand on your hand on the scaffold between you. Shit, you don't like that either. 

Well. Except you do. You like to talk to him. You like to work with him, when you start shooting your new shit, hard magic systems as a storytelling device, heavy on the JRPGs, and you both lose it laughing when you mushmouth out _Fuck-amori_ instead of whatever name you were trying to say. You like finding excuses to message him about nothing. You like thinking about his nimble hands, flipping cards and game pieces around, in close-up. 

The bruise fades, and you feel bold enough to maybe hop back up on that skateboard again.

(This is the stupidest metaphor. What you're getting at is: you text him.)

_>hey did you see that recipe Simone tweeted, yoooo  
>I pay attention to those so infrequently but this one looks like it for real slaps_

_>oh, no  
>oh HELL yeah thats some onion ass shit, i can fuck with that for sure_

You breathe deep, and reach out, for that comfort.

_>would you like to uh  
>come over and make it with me?  
>I'll buy all the shit for it, you just bring, yknow, You_

It is not a quick response. It takes him a long, long ass time.

Fuck.

_>i mean... pat... we could do that but it would be as just friends  
>it wouldnt be as something else  
>im sorry but please understand that_

You throw your head back onto the back of the sofa and sigh. Whatever little voice in the back of your mind was saying _but am I maybe reading too much into this?_ gets clocked in the face by a giant fist that just says _YES!!_ Of course you were. And of course you understand. You've already dragged yourself through this idiot hell once. The second time, lamentably, doesn't quite feel any easier.

_>no dude, fuck, I'm sorry  
>I just thought. I don't know what I thought. Yikes  
>at the holiday party. Was there something_

_>there kinda was maybe  
>but like not to bring up things that are bad for you  
>but the way things went with brian made it pretty clear to me that thats how things with us would probably go as well  
>i like you, pat! its just never gonna be that for me  
>were in like way different places about it  
>sorry. hope were okay._

You wait a long, long time to answer him this time. You fidget your hands against your knees and just _think_ about it, and - and - _there weren't any sides,_ you remind yourself. It was not a big enough fucking deal to have _sides_, so of course Clayton wasn't on yours. He was just. A kind friend, concerned coworker, good fucking human being. You were just: An absolute assclown, with or without blazer.

You shove up off the sofa, check your pockets for your wallet and your keys, stride toward the door. You already have your coat on before you text him back: _we are fully okay, us-wise. I will hopefully be okay me-wise at some indeterminate point in the near future which will probably involve spicy onions._

You saunter on down to the grocery store, and pick up the stuff to make the recipe by yourself.

> **MISFIRE!!** Your adventure seems to have come to an end. Now's a great time to start a new game by returning to chapter 1! Or, feel free to backtrack a step or two and try making different choices. :) Thanks for playing GILL OR BE GILLED!


	34. Chapter 34

You waggle your phone in your hand, again, and readjust your ass-position on the sofa. You tap the phone awake, and your thumb hovers...Instagram, texts, personal email, texts. Yeah, yes, texting him. Why is this a big deal? It fully does not have to be a big deal. You can make it casual and cute.

_>happy boxing day  
>more like.....HOTboxing day eyyyyy 12/26 blaze it  
>(bleh I'm sorry lol Maine is just so boring)_

And then - 

_>do they have fire escapes to get high on in Kansas :)_

Four texts is maybe a little overkill, but you're - working with the medium, here, right, it's funnier and more effective, or whatever. That's what you're gonna tell yourself. You're still not like fully certain what kind of tone you should be trying to take, here, but that one seems. Safe. _Approachable_ seems the wrong word, but more like - _receivable_. 

You don't expect an immediate response, which is wise because you do not get one. There's no read-receipts, but the messages hang in the void for a while, and you finally give up and wander, slipping back into the rest of your day of doing very little, loading your giftcard money onto your Amazon account (muttering _fuck you daddy Bezos_), eating some Chex mix, bullshit stuff. It's when you _still_ don't have an answer after, like, several whole hours, that you start frowning a tiny bit at your un-messaged phone every time you check it. Clayton's usually always good for at least a colon-parenthesis smiley-face, and unless he's just had like, a busier December 26th than anyone has ever had, you're a little surprised that he hasn't shot you something back. Surprised, and, if you're being honest, a little bummed. You - really want to talk to him, actually, you're realizing. About that night at his house specifically, yes, obviously, but also just kind of, in general, about nothing, just to talk. 

(You really have been thinking about him a lot. You've found yourself missing his steady-hand presence, over the break, in a way that, say, Brian's up-to-eleven energies and Simone's chaotic extravagance are nnnot exactly things you have minded getting a break from, you can't lie.)

(...You don't mind Jenna. Everyone likes Jenna.) 

Whatever, he's probably busy. Maybe his family is the type that always sees a movie at Christmas or something, and he's being a polite responsible citizen and staying off his phone in the dark theater. Maybe he's got a little shit nephew who stole his phone to play mobile games until his battery died. You're sure as heck not gonna text him again, considering you've already sent four in a row like a goof-ass and you still don't have a response to any of those, so you do your best to let it go, and get on with the rest of your relaxing holiday. God, it really is just such a relief to go a few more days without anyone like, _requiring_ anything of you. 

You do think about him a lot more in the interim, though, on the late train back to the city, and while you're doing your first load of laundry of 2020 because Charlie yartzed in your bed while you were gone. And other times. He never answered your message, which has now just started to seem _fuckin' weird_, but maybe he just missed it in the holiday shenanigans, and so you're just looking forward to getting to talk to him face to face instead, first thing back in the office. 

Well, okay - the first person you see is Simone, whose hair is a couple inches shorter and who is already getting up to something loud and mischievous with Jenna, just, a little too much too fast first thing in the morning the first day back. She reminds you that it isn't first thing in the morning because you're just as late as you always are, and you flip her off, and quip something about starting the new decade off just like you finished the old one, and Jenna goes, "No _new year new me_ for Patrick, huh," and by then you almost just want to talk to Clayton for the sole reason of escaping those two, never mind all the rest of the shit. 

But then you see him across the room, checked out of the office mayhem and into his work, and all your breath exhales out of you narrow and slow, because now you want to talk to him because he looks _good_. Looks like he got a haircut over break, too, seriously trimmed up so his beard game is on _point_, and you've maybe struggled with your sexual identity or whatever the fuck in the past but dude, guys are hot. Clayton's hot, and the way he's coolly avoiding the rest of the bullshit going on around him and just doing his damn job is especially hot. Even better than the version of him that's been lurking in your head all of the holiday break. You're crossing to him without even a second thought, with every intent of taking the computer right next to his for the day and finally getting a chance to talk to him again. You gotta power through, riding the wave of how excited you've been and how much you missed him, before your brain remembers that you are actually usually pretty awkward and bad at stuff like this. 

"Please tell me _you_ at least are still the same chill, non-insane Clayton you were last year," you laugh, gesturing around to the others, where Brian is getting in on the Simone-Jenna shenanigans now, and is sure to make it about eighty percent worse. 

"Welcome to my twisted mind," he intones in his haunted-house voice, deliberately crossing his eyes over his nose. You crack up laughing, and he says, like a normal person, "Welcome back, Patrick. Good to see you."

You're not proud of how breathy and warm that makes you feel. "Yeah, same to you, man," you say, hopefully not too forcefully, yikes. You go ahead and add, "I, uh, I really missed you. Glad to be back." God, you're _excited_ to see him. You kind of don't know how to handle it, like you're trying to hold something really hot with your bare hands and keep just kind of popcorning it around to keep from burning. Except in a good way, in a way that kind of makes it so you just can't stop grinning. 

"Aw, missed you too, bud."

"You find any good fire escapes to smoke on over the break?" 

"Oh!" he says, "haha, yeah, sorry I never uh, answered your text." He scratches, a little, up under the left side of his beard. "No unfortunately we can't really do that out there, too many kiddos around."

"Have to find a time to revisit sometime soon, then," you say. "Now that we're back."

"Hehehe, yeah."

He clicks around on his computer for a beat or two more, and then suddenly gets up, pushes off and away from you, walks like he's headed to either the break room or Tara's office. You, unfortunately, watch him the entire way as he goes, unable to undo the grin that's plastered to your face. 

You should have known something was up, when you suddenly couldn't hear everyone else rocketing around anymore. As soon as you get your computer booted up, you see where you already have a message, from Simone, that just says, 

_>okay, what the FUCK is going on with you and Clayton!!_

Shit. She saw that. There was something to _see_, first of all, and also, she saw it. 

_Absolutely nothing,_ you lie. 

_>he's just the only one of you fuckers being normal right now so he was the only one I was actually excited to see, turns out_

_> [LOTR_KEEPYOURSECRETS.gif]  
>:eyes::eyes::eyes: seriously thouughh_

_>oh my fucking god do you honestly think that even if there WAS something going on that I would tell you, you are a literal harpy_

_>you were STARING at him!!  
>Did you guys get nasty or something?_

Two things happen simultaneously, which is that a red-hot flush paints itself absolutely _all over_ your face and down into the collar of your shirt, because you're suddenly both thinking about and trying very, very hard not to think about that cool otherworldly night in Clayton's bed, and also the second thing is that Simone has stood up from the computer she's been using and is staring straight at you.

"Holy _shit_," she yelps, "I was _joking_, did you and Clayton actually fuck?" 

"Jesus _christ_, Simone," you wail, small and pitiful and nowhere near as loud as she just was, and yeah, you can see it in her eyes, as she's realizing exactly what she's just done. And how loudly she's done it.

"Oh my god," she says. She sits down, hard. "Oh my god? Pat, I'm - oh my god." 

"Stop, stop, he's already dead," you quote weakly, and she finally shuts up. 

Never a dull _fucking_ moment, is there.

Okay. Okay, jesus, okay, so the fallout from that is like. Well, Brian and Jenna and Susana and Samit all definitely witnessed that. Clayton probably definitely heard it all the way in the break room, but maybe is missing some of the context, and you think - yeah, you gotta get out ahead of this, probably. You wipe your sweaty hands on the thighs of your jeans and dart up in his direction, and you find him there, sitting at one of the smaller tables, his face buried in one hand. Shit. _Shit,_ this is happening now, this is happening so fast.

"Clayton, fuck," you start, moving toward him, "I don't, I'm so sorry, she just - "

"What did you say to her?" he says.

"I didn't say _anything_, she fuckin' no-scoped me," you insist. Fuck, okay, this is clearly a mess, but he looks - way, _way_ serious. You've maybe underestimated just how much of a mess it actually is. 

"I just." His voice is _soft_, you almost can't even hear him and you're sitting right across from him, and he glances over at the door, like he's making sure you closed it behind you. You did, obviously. "I just _really_ didn't want to get into this at work. The whole thing with us." Which - would explain why he bolted when you were kind of trying to talk to him about it, you guess. Hm. _Fuck_.

"Clayton," you say, trying to match his softness, but also just like - "Clayton, you never even answered my text over break. Is there a _thing_ with us?" 

"Fuck," he hisses, "this is, this is what I was worried about! I don't, like, know what you _want_, Pat. With, with us. With me." 

His face is up out of his hands, now, and he's looking at you with wide heavy eyes and a twist through his mouth that you can't quite read. Which, like, Clayton's maybe not the easiest to read in general, but you guys are - _alike_, you think, more than anybody else in the office maybe, despite your incredibly high idiot-comedy-simpatico energy with Brian, or the undeniable clones and/or twins and/or genderswaps vibes you have with Simone. You're just, y'know, two chill introverted scruffy gangly fuckers who maybe take your jobs a little bit too seriously sometimes and who like wearing button-up shirts and watching movies with big explosions, or some shit. You are as the kids say _vibin'_. If you can't read him in this moment that is explicitly about the two of you, it's probably pretty weird and he's also probably pretty damn serious.

You thought about him so much, over the break. You like him so _damn_ much, you're realizing, and you hate that it's taking this weird dumbfuck goof of Simone's and this shitty circumstance to really drive that home to you. If there's an _us_ to be had, here, you think you really do want to try to make that happen.

> YOU DO KNOW WHAT YOU WANT. --> PROCEED TO [CHAPTER 36](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21918814/chapters/52318045).  
YOU'LL GLADLY DEFER TO HIM, INSTEAD. --> PROCEED TO [CHAPTER 37](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21918814/chapters/52318081).


	35. Chapter 35

You flop your phone over in your hand, round in a circle, five or six or seven times. You key it open, stare at the photo of Charlie you have as your background. You tab over to - 

Instagram. Fuck it. You'll fuck around and see what anybody else has going on, and when that turns out to be _nothing_, you'll find something better to do.

You don't text Clayton. Clayton doesn't text you. He's posted exactly one holiday photo so far, of himself and some cousins in some matching ugly sweaters, faces largely out of camera, just torsos. It looks like he's having a nice vacation, and the last thing you want to do is insert yourself into that and weird it all up. For _both_ of you. You'll see each other at the office soon enough, so might as well just enjoy the break you get while you still can. 

(It doesn't stop you from thinking about it, though. You think about Clayton's cool hands on your skin, think about how easy it was to fall into and then fall out of again, and you don't like, touch yourself at your family's house or anything, but it's definitely never far from your mind. You're definitely feeling like - this needs to be more than a one-time thing, if you can help it.)

You actually end up traveling on New Year's, so there's no dramatic countdown or drunken revelry or whatever. Honestly, after previous years, you can fucking skip it. You imagine, vividly, splicing yourself into a supercut montage of over-the-top cinematic instances of dudes saying _I'm gettin' too old for this shit._ You make it home right around midnight, and Charles is your new year's kiss. 

You've got Thursday and Friday to kind of ease your way back into being a person who works in an office, before the real year kicks in after the weekend. You drift in just a little bit late, on time for you really, nursing a coffee and trying not to grimace when Simone and Brian especially are just too dang chipper for your ass. You're still a little bit in the middle of an existential crisis about it literally being the year 2020, you're gonna be lucky if you just make it to your meetings this afternoon - your design brainstorm with Jeff for the new flagship merch site that his gamer-fashion _I Love Eating Ass_ t-shirt launched around the holidays, which you're apparently part of now, drawing weird art and providing an airquotes _edgy male nerd perspective_ whatever the fuck that means, Jeffrey, and then after that your shooting setup one-on-one with -

With Clayton. Cool, cool, no big deal. 

In a perfect portrait of casualness, you stretch your head up from your work station to cast your eye around and look for him - you're realizing, suddenly, you haven't seen him all day. He's like three computers down from you and on the other side of the bank, and you can just barely see the top of his head. This isn't a romantic comedy, so he absolutely does not notice you looking, so you just slide back down into your seat and try to focus up on the half-assed job you're doing scrubbing through this old, interminable Squaresoft footage for your first solo video of the new year. You don't say anything to him, though you can see him showing up as online in Slack. He doesn't say anything to you, either.

You and Clayton are - _alike_, you think, somehow. More than anyone else in the office, almost; you're hugely simpatico with Brian, of course, and you've never fought against it when other people or even Simone herself makes jokes about you and she being siblings or clones or whatever. But you've got like, peas-in-a-pod energy with Clayton, sort of, just two dudes who really like making videos and wearing button-up shirts and being chill and like, relatively unobtrusive, who are definitely not bouncing around the office the first day back after break _cackling_ like whatever the fuck Simone and Jenna are up to, now, jesus. Y'all are just.

"We are just vibing," you whisper-joke to nobody but yourself. Clayton's still not saying anything, so you don't say anything either, and you work on through lunch, scarfing a microwave burrito at your desk and poking a little bit at the group schedule calendar that's starting to take shape for January. 

Your merch meeting with Jeff goes well, although maybe not especially productively, since he only just barely knows what he's doing with this new shit and you know even less. He does bring up your mummy drawings from the Superfight episode of Overboard, and maybe uses the word _monsterfucker_, and four rounds of miserable head-hanging jokes later, you've agreed to start working on an illustration of yourself and some of your office-mates as gnarly zombies. (You're actually pretty stoked for Jenna's side-shave to just be, like, her brains comin' out.) And then before you really process it, you're -

Settling into an empty tech room with Clayton, to talk about equipment and software and literally just the most fundamentally boring part of your job. 

And eating up every minute of it, because you're just so happy to see him again.

You feel like you should be spacing out, but you're not, you're honestly so invested in every word, because working with Clayton feels _good_. Y'all get some shit _done_, you're drawing out diagrams and he's doing some vague, bare-bones budget stuff and he's smiling, and you think he's definitely trimmed his beard up recently because he looks _good_, and you've exchanged a couple of pleasantries, sure, not having talked or seen each other in like two weeks, but it's not till the end of the meeting, after you think you've accomplished the things that this was supposed to accomplish, work-wise, that he says, 

"Hey, uh, Pat." He leans back in his chair and crosses one ankle up onto his knee, his comfy bad-tendons dad sneakers at odds with his stylish shirt in a way that's just like stupidly charming, for some reason, his hands folded on his stomach. "I just, uh, I wanted to thank you for how cool you've been about, about what happened after the party." Vague, okay, but he's smiling. "It's not exactly the kind of thing I like talking about at work, I'm glad you - that we didn't make it into like, a hot topic."

"No Hot Topics here in 2020," you quip, and it's funny because you're definitely wearing an old busted Nintendo tee that you probably got from Hot Topic, see, that's the joke. But you dial it back. "No sweat," you add. Even though you maybe did, like, two-percent sweat. 

"I had a _really_ good time with you that night," he adds.

"Me too," you admit, and try to convey how much you mean it without sounding like a crazy person. "Dude, it was awesome. Not gonna lie, I've - thought about it, some." You swallow a little. "About maybe doing it again."

"Oh, we for sure have to do it again," Clayton says, and you laugh a little until you realize - oh, he sounds _serious_.

"Well yeah, uh, sure, man," you say. "Let's make a date."

"Pat..." He trails off, and wipes a hand down across his face, ending at his beard, scratching a little. "Pat, I liked it a lot because I like _you_ a lot. I really wanna do this thing with you. Like, for _real_."

"Hh - how real we talkin'?"

"I mean, as - as partners, ideally," he says. He looks shaky, nervous, but absolutely certain. "I don't do, like, the casual, hooking up, thing. I want to _be_ with you."

Oh. Fuck, he _is_ serious. If you've figured out one thing from your interactions (or lack thereof) and your Vibin'™ with Clayton from that night at his place till now, it's that you're pretty decent at reading him, and there's no mistaking the weight in his wide, soft eyes, or how his fingers have twisted into each other just a little more tightly as he kind of just...gently tips the ball into your court, now. That's where that dang thing is. 

It's. Wooof. It's a pretty heavy ball, is all.

And now that you've got it, you are genuinely terrified to try to figure out how to toss it back. And also, Clayton's still looking at you expectantly, and also, this is way too much of a sports metaphor for you, so you should probably...do something about it, before it gets too weird... 

Right?

> THIS MIGHT BE A LITTLE FAST FOR YOU. YOU DON'T WANNA RUSH INTO IT. --> PROCEED TO [CHAPTER 40](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21918814/chapters/52318195).  
YOU'RE FULLY ON HIS WAVELENGTH, AFTER ALL. LET'S DO IT. --> PROCEED TO [CHAPTER 41](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21918814/chapters/52318210).


	36. Chapter 36

You take a deep breath, sweep your hand back through your hair, sit up a little straighter. You know, all the shit you can possibly do with your body to try to trick your brain into getting its shit together. This is already bad, you gotta say this exactly right to keep it from being an even bigger disaster. 

"Clayton," you say. Okay, not exactly a strong start, but it's somethin', huh. "Clayton, I - look, it blows that this dumb fucking shit is how everyone had to find out that we, y'know. Got our dicks out, or whatever."

"Jesus," he says, but he does crack a little bit of a smile, despite himself, so you take that for the encouragement it absolutely is, and keep going.

"I hate that this is how they learned but I don't hate _that they learned_," you tell him. "It's embarrassing as hell, but more because I don't like knowing they're thinking about us in weird kinky compromising positions - don't, like, c'mon, you _know_ that's where Jenna's at right now - it's _that_, it's not that I'm embarrassed that we slept together."

"Pat, no - yeah - no of course not," he says all at once. "I like you so _much_, it was - so nice. Understatement."

"I like _you_ so much!" you say. Damn, okay, now he's gettin' it. "I thought about you, and about that, the night at your place - "

"Dicks out," he interjects, smiling still.

" - just like, a stupid amount while I was home for Christmas." You're smiling back now, too, big and broad. Disaster averted. "It was _awesome_. I absolutely would love to do it again, and who cares who knows about it, tee-bee-aych. It, like, doesn't have to be a big deal."

"Oh."

And that smile, that sweet gorgeous beardy Clayton Ashley smile, has absolutely evaporated from his face. His mouth purses back into that small unreadable line, and you blink a little bit Drew Scanlon and try to figure out where you went wrong. He was _with it_, you were fixing it, you were doing so good. You were - _are_ \- so excited, to spend some more time with him in the new year and kick this shit back off again. What gives?

"So - wait, now I'm confused," you say. "Did you not - "

"No," he says, shaking his head, putting his hand up like _I'm gonna stop you right there._ "Pat. I. I _want_ it to be a big deal."

"In - in w-what _way_?" 

"I - I don't, uh, _hook up_," Clayton says, meeting your eyes about two-thirds of the time, which you think is a pretty impressive percentile. "I'm so glad we did, because it was super amazing, but you need to know how insanely out of character that was for me. I did it because I thought - " He sighs, like he himself is an idiot for even thinking it, which is lowkey devastating. "I thought we could be. Partners. Boyfriends, or whatever. That we could date, and, and have something really real and, serious, kind of." He takes a deep breath. "I kind of only have the one setting, Pat. I _really_ like you." 

This is the most insane tonal shift from Simone yelling about you guys _fucking_ in the office bullpen less than ten fucking minutes ago that you are just. _Yowza_. You exhale long and tight and slow, trying to get your already overworked brain to follow along. Like, yeah, you really like Clayton, a lot even, but what he's getting at seems like _so much_. You definitely didn't go into it with that in mind, and you're not sure if you've. If you've got it in you. Especially with your in-the-shitter track record. _Especially_ after all of one (1) - admittedly amazing - sexual encounter when you were both slightly under the proverbial influence, plus two weeks of vague obsession and nebulous crushing. The shitty Venn diagram of sexual attraction plus romantic compatibility plus companionship plus straight-up general horniness that is adult dating is not exactly genning you up a home run, here. (You don't even have time to unpack how mixed _that_ metaphor was. Your brain is overworked as it is.) This is happening _so fast_. Everything happens so much.

You've gone way, way too long without saying something, which unfortunately probably also like - says something. Says way more than you were planning on saying, honestly. "I'm. Uh. Fuck, _Clayton_ \- "

"I get it," he says, with a finality in his tone that is just, _upsetting_, a heavy practiced calm like, oh, jesus, fuck, maybe he has had to have this conversation with people before, you are just another asshole, fuck his face is so impassive and cool and this is actually _the last thing you wanted_, you just wanted to make him smile. To not weird this whole thing up. It feels like water slipping through your fingers. "You don't need to explain, it's okay. I'm - I'm glad we're figuring this out now, actually, and not, uh, further in."

"I don't know what to say," you say, _painfully_ honestly.

"You could apologize."

"Fuck me, Clayton, I am _so sorry_."

"Apology accepted," he says. "I get it," he says again. "Um. If you could - if I could just have a moment or two, by myself, before I have to go back out there to this fucking trainwreck." Despite everything, he's smiling sheepishly, again. You dare to let it feel encouraging, again.

"Fucking - absolutely, totally, yes," you tell him. "I'll deal with Simone." That seems like the least you can do.

"Thank you," he says. He adds, winsome and jokey, "You are free to go." 

You let yourself chuckle desperately at that one, because you need to hang onto _something_ and you shove up from the table and head over to the door. But you hesitate, because - because. Like, fuck, you fucked up here and you don't think you can recover from this, but you still _like him_. 

"Are we - like, not _now_, clearly, punch me in the face if you need to, but are we g-gonna be okay?"

He's not looking at you, but he nods, a whole bunch, but slowly. "Yeah. Yeah, probably." 

And you - absolutely believe him, it turns out. You're _alike_, you and Clayton, so you think you've got a pretty good read.

> **DAMN, SON.** Looks like your adventure with CLAYTON has come to a pretty rough end. :( How would you like to proceed?
> 
> TAKE THE L. --> NEW GAME! START OVER AGAIN AT [CHAPTER 1](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21918814/chapters/52316155).  
MAYBE THINGS WILL BE EASIER WITH BRIAN. --> PROCEED TO [CHAPTER 48](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21918814/chapters/52318645).  
MAYBE THINGS WILL BE EASIER WITH JEFF. --> PROCEED TO [CHAPTER 49](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21918814/chapters/52318690).


	37. Chapter 37

"Look," you say - a little weakly, maybe, but you're not a hundred percent sure where this is going and it's kind of all you have. "I - I think I also don't, uh, totally know what I want, here. So I'm not surprised that you don't. Dude, I'm a dipshit." You try to laugh at yourself. He doesn't quite laugh, though, so that makes it preeeetty ineffective. "But what I do know is that like. Your head seems to be on straighter than mine. If you've got, like, thoughts, feelings, ideas, questions comments concerns - "

"Patrick - "

"Why don't you drive," you finally say. "Steer this ship. I'm down for, for whatever you need, because - " You take a deep breath, and reach your hand across the table, toward him - not, not making contact, you are trying _so_ hard not to push or crash this car (is it a ship or a car, Patrick, jesus christ get to the point), but just giving him the option to take your hand, if he wants - "Because I _really_ like you, I think. Um, a lot. A significant amount at least. Fuck, I'm gonna just stop talking now." You move your other hand to your forehead to brush your hair back, but then you kind of just. Leave it there. Good grief.

This seems to have been the right dialogue option, though, because you suddenly feel the weight of his hand on yours - and when you look back up, Clayton's inscrutable expression finally cracks open into a little bit of a smile. God, he's _beautiful_. "Ohh, man," he says, "I _really like you_, too. So much." He rubs his thumb against the back of your hand, and it is just like, heartwrenchingly tender. "That's - most of the reason why I'm freaking out, honestly. I wanted to take this slow and kind of, kind of on the dee-ell, because it - it feels really good and really serious, with you, y'know? I'm, uh," he's hesitating and his eyes flick away, "I'm demisexual? I guess? So I'm not really into the whole. Scare-quotes, _'friends with benefits,'_ kind of thing. I wanted to do this right."

He's past-tensing it a lot, so you think you're following: "But now Simone blew up your spot."

"Simone blew up our spot," he agrees. "I _really_ don't want the rest of the office involved on this, Pat. If, if it's all the same to you, can we just - wait till the shit kind of stops hitting the fan? Till it all dies down? I kind of. Need to take a lap, on this one." 

He's throwing a lot at you, but you _think_ you're processing it. You're just still not a hundred percent sure how where you're at lines up with where he's at. So it - it's actually almost a _better_ move, for you, to not be taking a move at all? You're letting him drive and he is putting the car in park so you guys can get out and stretch your legs a little before you cruise on forward. _Fuck_ this metaphor is stupid. But like, it's working for you. If he wants to pause, and come back to this later, that sounds - 

"That actually sounds _great_," you tell him, and he squeezes your hand and nods, and then lets go. "We can both just sort of take a breather. Get back to it when things are - less fucked." 

"Absolutely, absolutely." His smile gets even brighter, and it tempts a smile out of you, too, before he winces and shifts to a serious business face and starts to stand up. "Ohhh-kay, I guess now I just gotta go deal with Simone."

"D'you want me to talk to her? Is, is that easier for you?"

"No, no, I got it, I guess," he says. "Daddy Clayclay says, go to time out." You laugh at him, and he laughs at himself, too, and then he slips out of the break room and leaves you at the table. 

You don't follow - you feel like you ought to give him a minute - but you're kind of at a loss of what to do during that minute, so you kind of just. Stare into space. Think about the video you need to start working on once you get back to your desk. Think about - you should probably google _demisexual_ just to make sure you've fully got a handle on it, since that seemed kind of a big deal for him to say to you, and just as. Well, just as much as he does, you're realizing, you want to do this _right_.

Also didn't you leave an energy drink in here before the break? You should try to find that, because you think you are abso_lutely_ going to need it, to make it through this fucking day. 

(But it turns out it ended up in the freezer, somehow, and now the can is completely blown out at both ends and you should probably throw it in the garbage.)

By the time you head back out into the bullpen, Clayton has clearly reached a good place with Simone - they're both sitting back down at their desks, and she looks reasonably chastised and also horrendously guilty, which you kind of can't even feel bad about right now because like what the _hell_, Simone, jesus, and he looks mollified and decently un-wigged, although you can tell he's still not. Not great, a little bit uneasy. They both turn to look at you when you step out, but say nothing, and tuck back down into their screens. You nod, awkwardly, at no one (maybe Jenna is still looking but what_ever_) and head back to your desk, too, and when you sit down next to Clayton he flashes you a quick little smile, and then you get back to your slog through this old Squaresoft footage and the rest of your morning and the rest of your day. Fucking - _bananas_.

You microwave a mediocre burrito bowl for lunch, because you're too tired and it's too fucking cold outside to merit leaving and going somewhere. You meet with Jeff at two-thirty to talk about drawing up some designs for, get this, the Polygon Dot Com _merch store_, which launched for the holidays with his-and-Brian's E3 fashion I Love Eating Ass shirt, which Jeff actually wore to that damned holiday party at Clayton's, not in Brian's black but in a tasteful maroon. You are like, an adjunct on the merch team he has somehow inherited the responsibility of, and you're gonna end up with stuff you've drawn on items that are available for sale. Ridiculous. After that is a one-on-one with _Clayton_, about hardware and equipment and stuff and what's going on with your 2020 budget for that, which is boring as shit, but also - very nice, to sit and talk to him and see him visibly calmed down from the morning's tomfuckery. It is, it turns out, an incredibly normcore workday, if you don't count like, the first half an hour. Albeit a fairly bullshit one because like fuck if anyone's doing anything consequential in this weird void of Thursday/Friday between the break and the weekend. Monday's gonna feel more real.

Today feels...liminal as fuck. Things got turned around on themselves about fourteen different ways and now you're just supposed to - go home, hang out with Charles, not think about Clayton like you did the entirety of break but just kind of take this breather, maybe think instead about streaming on Twitch again, order white pizza from that dope place down the block for you and Quinn, get on with your life? 

Well, but like. You do. It's surprisingly a lot easier than you thought it would be. 

The January schedule at work firms up. You're down for Unraveled shooting on the thirteenth and fifteenth, you and Brian and Clayton; you're in Overboard on the twenty-eighth, and no it is _not_ Cyberpunk again it turns out, damnit, not yet at least, it's you and Karen and Jeff and Simone, shot by Clayton, playing some goof-ass wizard shit called Potion Explosion; your next personal project, hard magic systems as a storytelling and worldbuilding device, heavy on RPGs, heavy on this _bullshit_ old Square footage you've been curating, will go up sometime early February, also shot by Clayton. 

You still think about him, like a _lot_, and spend a lot time with him, obviously; he's your direct office-mate coworker, he's _always there_, looking cute in his fancy Pokemon-patterned shirts or tossing his _:)_s into the group chat. He and Brian leave your off-camera laughter in the Unraveled edit _so much_ and it's fourteen percent embarrassing and eighty-six percent just really sweet and charming, and whether or not you're, like, _pursuing a relationship_ with him or whatever the fuck, you still - have feelings for him, and moreover he's still your _friend_. With anyone else, this waiting game would probably be killing you, but with Clayton...well. It's like before. You guys are the _same_. Vibin'. He's the one you want shooting your hard magic video, even though Jenna could probably handle it just as easily, and would also probably care more about the subject material, and probably has less on her plate. He's the one you cast panicked looks to during Potion Explosion because you're uncomfortable in your goof-ass wizard outfit that Simone bullied everyone into, and Jeff takes your distraction as an opportunity to chuck a marble at your head, and you snatch it from the air like Superman catching a bullet and _everyone screams_ and Clayton, of course, gets it all on camera, laughing back at you even as he calls Jeff out for foul play, _don't break his glasses, god_ (_or my **skull**, Clayton!_) and you never feel like he's anything but _on your side_, and the cool low-ember coals inside of you keep you warm, still, and they don't _need_ to be stoked back into a great big fire. Not just yet. 

The morning of February the eleventh, right before lunch, your inbox lights up with an email from Simone that she has also apparently sent to a number of your other coworkers, capslocky and riled up:

_ATTENTION ALL SINGLE BITCHES!! Valentine's Day is a crock of SHIT!! Considering it's on a Friday this year, and none of us have to be beholden for shit the next morning as far as I'm aware (if you've got some equally fuck-this-shit boozy brunch plans then why the HELL am I not invited), I've got a proposition for you, which is that we hit up this place where I know a gal who owes me a favor (wink wiinnnk) and raise a glass to NOT buying into societal and capitalist ideas of what romance is or should be, and maybe also grind up on some hotties because we CAN and SHOULD contain MULTITUDES here in this the year of our lord Twenty Twenty. Look hot, wear red. Mama Simone (platonically, god, *so platonically* I cannot stress this enough) loves you all. :kissing_heart:_

You're laughing, by the time you hit the end of it where she's listed the address and time, because god that is some _incredibly_ Simone-ass content. You skim the list of CC'd folks, and it's a good crowd: Allegra, Brian, Jenna, Karen, Jeff, Chelsea, and Clayton, plus a couple emails you don't recognize that are surely other friends of hers. You're not ordinarily a go-out-get-crunk sort of dude, on account of you are thirty-two, and averse to spending lots of money; the last time you got even close to drunk was probably that fateful night at Clayton's apartment, and even then you were still like, on the edge, goin' slow and never fully tipping over. Who knows, though, maybe you're overdue. And if you're reading Simone's implications re: _knowing a gal_ correctly, maybe you won't even have to pay for it, which is defo a huge selling point.

Clayton possibly also being in attendance is, too, if you're being fully honest. 

You float it past him casually, Thursday evening before you head out for the day, making the professional decision to just _not_ fuck with the footage from this romanceable-NPCs-themed new Unraveled until the morning. "Hey, are you uh, you goin' to Simone's thing, tomorrow night?" 

"Oh, uh, probably?" he says, though he kind of says it like he hadn't even really thought about it before now. He smirks a little. "I don't own much red, though, so I might not be in dress code."

"You could wear your Vileplume shirt, that's like, red-adjacent, mostly." 

"Mm, love is poison. I could get into it." You both laugh. "You've got your outfit all lined up, I'm sure."

"It's a classic and it has never failed me," you say, in your poor plaid shirt's defense. "It's a hottie _magnet_. If by hottie you mean my gorgeous man Charles who fucking loves to sleep on that shit."

"Well, then it is a blessed item," says Clayton. "Yeah, I think I will probably go. Cool. Not like I've got anything else going on." 

"Yeah," you agree, hoping it doesn't sound as awkward out loud as it does in your head. 

When you roll up on the address Simone specified, slightly after eight p.m. on the night of Friday, February the fourteenth, you're a little surprised to find that it's not exactly the dubious-quality dance club you were expecting it to be, or even a chiller and equally grungy hipster dive bar. It's a - it's a pretty nice place. You feel adequately dressed but only just. The host tells you it's cool to sit wherever, but you mention you might be meeting a group, de Rochefort party, if any of them are here yet, and they perk up.

"Oh, Simone's other boy!" they chirp, and that is _oh_ so ominous. "Yeah, for sure, right this way." 

You follow them back through the bar floor to a table. A small table. A table designed for two people, which already has one other occupant, and that person is, of course, goddamnit Simone, that person is Clayton Ashley. He looks up when you come by, and keeps looking at you as you sit down across from him, and his whole facial expression says that he had kind of already figured out what was going on and your showing up has just confirmed it for him.

"Wow, so this is happening," you say, which is maybe not especially tactful or polite, but like, god_damnit_ Simone.

"Yeeaaahh," he says, pressing his hand to his face. "Well, hello, Patrick, happy Valentine's day."

"Hi," you say, a little more kindly, and then just again, "Wow."

He nods his head, and then gives a little shrug. "I think she, I guess she still feels really bad for, for causing the big scene, back in January." It's one of the only times he's brought it up, since then; it has become a little bit of an office joke, but the butt of the joke has _always_ been Simone and her big mouth, thank god, so the two of you usually just choose to pretend it didn't happen. "Which, this is nice of her, but also just, um, a little. Ridiculous."

"Leave it to someone who writes romance novels as a side hustle to come up with this sort of shit," you agree with a dark chuckle. 

"Um, I do think, though," says Clayton, "that, uh, that our tab is like. Paid for?" He shrugs again. "So I mean, if we want, we could still sit and hang and spend Simone's money. If it'll make her feel better." 

"That is a - fairly convincing argument," you admit. And it could be...nice, maybe, _really_ nice, to just. Spend some time with Clayton, in a context like this, free from the bullshit trappings of the time you usually spend together. You're turning around on this really, really quickly, it turns out. "Shit, dude, yeah, let's just hang."

You...hang! The special Valentine's cocktails the bar is cranking out are all kind of nauseating-looking, but they do have your favorite, like, middle-shelf bourbon, and you don't feel bad ordering yourself a couple on Simone's dime. Clayton opts for the fruity ridiculous one kind of as a goof, and then switches to craft beer when it does turn out to be super awful, but not before he snaps a pic and sends it to Simone and she just responds, _YASS!!! HEHEHE_. Good lord. You split some upscaled, bougie nachos. You regale him with some Charlie antics, and he updates you on some work stuff, a little sneak peek at the upcoming Monster Factory that is just as terrifying as usual. If it weren't for the grim fucking spectre of Simone's manipulative little troll hands getting their sticky mess all over things, the atmosphere would actually be pretty nice.

This would actually almost feel like...a real-ass date. 

Look, the ember-coals in the bottom of your chest are maybe flaring up a little, okay? Clayton is as cute as ever, lit soft by the moody bar ambiance and sticking his tongue out after he bites into a particularly potent jalapeno, and this is just _remarkably_ date-like, and it's been over a month since you decided you were gonna take this slow, and that seems like. Like a reasonable amount of slow, to take it. Even the big-mouth Simone office joke is sort of on its way out, dethroned by some absolutely wild shit that Karen apparently got up to during Oscar season. This could. This could maybe. 

You open your mouth and say "Hey is this - " and right in the same moment he opens _his_ mouth and says "So does this count - " and you both hang your heads, and laugh, and you know, you _know_, you're both remembering the moment when you did that same shit before, one hit in on his fire escape, because you're vibing on the same wavelength, because you're the same. Your flames fan just that little bit higher still.

"It could uh. It could be a date, if you wanted," you tell him. 

"God, Simone would be fucking insufferable though, wouldn't she," he points out, chuckling. "To know that it worked. But I dunno, I guess she just. Wants us to be happy." His voice shifts kinder, at the end, there. It's so fucking lovely.

"Sure," you say, because yeah, okay, you'll give her that one. "Yeah. But it's not exactly up to her."

"Guess not."

It's up to _you_, damnit. Is this a date, or not?

> YEAH, YOU THINK THIS IS ACTUALLY A DATE. --> PROCEED TO [CHAPTER 38](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21918814/chapters/52318114).  
NO, YOU DON'T THINK THIS FUCKING COUNTS. --> PROCEED TO [CHAPTER 39](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21918814/chapters/52318171).


	38. Chapter 38

You take another swig off your bourbon, and you shoot out a telepathic message into the ether telling the grim spectre of Simone to _fuck off_. "Clayt-o, my man," you say, "I think we're on a genu-wine date." 

"We-ell, golly gee," he says, playing along. He smiles, and flushes a little pink, and then he lifts that godawful cocktail - still sitting there, barely consumed - and tips it toward you in a toast. You laugh and clink your glass back into it, and then you both drink, Clayton grimacing and spitting his back out before he's even done and only making you laugh harder. 

It's - like, it's maybe not at all what you would've picked for your first date. You think, maybe, you would've taken Clayton to that pizza place down the block from your apartment, the one with the arcade machine and the good cheap beer and the one single Italian guy working there making sure the rest of the kids don't fuck things up. But if this is what you've got, this is what you've got. For Clayton's sake, at least, you can try to make the most out of a bad situation, it just...well, now that you've decided it _is_ a real date, all the mildly uncomfortable energy of a First Date starts creeping on into this otherwise really nice evening that you were having. Everything seems just a little bit loaded. You stumble through a couple more mostly-unawkward anecdotes and jokes, hoping you're still laughing like a regular human, and when you finish the nachos and decide to also split a dessert, the server brings it out just like, over the _top_ romance-ified, two spoons and a heart-shaped drizzle of whatever this cream is, and just, _yikes_. Okay, you were gonna go easy on Simone at the office on Monday, but now you're not so sure. You hope wherever she's spending the night she's super fucking proud of herself. 

When the night is over and you're headed out, you put on a garbage asshole dudebro voice and joke at him, "_So_-o, like, do you kiss on the first date or what?"

He laughs. "Uhh, ordinarily I'd say that's a hard _maybe_," he says gamely. "Like, it depends on the person, but a lot of the time I wouldn't have even agreed to go on the date in the first place if I weren't already like. Y'know, _there_, with somebody." You _hmm_ and nod, a little - you _did_ end up googling "demisexual," when he dropped that on you, and that definitely sounds like it tracks. "But tonight..." he trails off. "I dunno, it feels like. A little bad. Like that's _what she would have wanted_, like she puppetmastered all of this, it feels dirty." He laughs again. "I don't want it tainted by her _schemes_."

"Well," you say, "Simone, like. She doesn't have to know." 

"She sure found out about it last time."

"We're better prepared to combat her shit now, though. We've learned from experience."

"Patrick if you want to kiss me you should just say that," he says. You've stopped on a corner, now, realizing you need to catch the subway in different directions. He faces you head-on, his breath coming out in little white curls in the cold, and he. Well, he looks. Kissable.

You fist your hand gently, so gently, into the oatmeal-white knit of his scarf, and pull his mouth tentatively toward your own. 

His lips are chapped, in the winter, and he still tastes a little bit like that froufrou dessert. It's dry and sweet and street-corner chaste, because damn him he's _right_ about Simone and the awkwardness creeps back up on you about halfway through, but it's - nice. Clayton is just so _nice_, to talk to and to be around and to. To kiss, it turns out. You'd almost forgotten about that. 

His smile when you part is cute and soft and a little bit wry, and he says, "Well, okay then," and lifts his hand up to stroke over your shoulder a couple of times, his gloves, your coat. "Have a good night, Pat."

"G'night Clayton," you murmur, your cheeks coloring a little as you smile back, and then you both turn and leave, and head home. 

(You get off the train to about a dozen back-to-back texts from Simone, all with conspicuously perfect spelling and punctuation, so she is for sure intoxicated somewhere begging you for details of your great date and for you to tell her how good a job she did and how smart she is. You literally do not answer any of them.) 

You are like, deliberately, forcibly chill on Monday in the office. It's an Unraveled posting day, so that jumps to the top of your priority list, making your final pass-through round of notes and then tossing it back to Brian. (This is the most people he's had in an episode since We Are The Toads, all six of you combining and recombining in weird pairings to deliver this absolutely _insane_ and also totally-real, lifted-from-actual-games couples' dialogue to one another, and the one sequence of you and Jeff is just especially disgusting and horny, good god - it took a lot of editing to get around Jeff cracking up laughing every _single_ goddamn take. The long, just uncomfortably fucking long shot of Brian and Karen gazing into each other's eyes silent and stone-faced is pretty excellent though.) You focus on that, and on helping Jenna through what looks like a pretty righteous hangover by making a taco run at lunch, rather than indulging Simone in her gloating or lingering too much around Clayton morning-after style. You haven't forgotten how much he _hated_ making it the office's business, you're not about to betray that now. No matter how hard Simone waggles her eyebrows at you. 

You think about it, though, because of course you do. You and Clayton went on a _date_, for better or worse. It twists your lips up in a little smile, at your desk, where you're doodling up a new illustration of your boy Burger Chainz that you might send over to Jeff and the merch team. Maybe you and Clayton are gonna go on another one. Maybe you and Clayton are _dating_.

Wednesday afternoon, he messages you, in fact, from a couple computers down.

_>Hey I was thinking, are we doing this like  
>Like if I wanted to ask you to go to that pho place on lunch tomorrow  
>Is that just two bros hanging out or is it a date now :)_

_>sounds like a date to me man  
>You're driving, remember :red_car:_

_>:blue_car:  
>Ok....sweet. Patrick will you get lunch with me tomorrow_

_>Clayton it would be my pleasure_

You and Clayton go to the pho place, and you manage to limit yourself to one and only one _phuck yes_ joke, which he humors you by laughing at. Conversation doesn't exactly - flow, around mouthfuls of noodles, when you've got much of the same day-to-day experiences and have experienced most of the same anecdotes, but it's okay to quietly slurp and just like, bask in each other's presence or whatever. He's wearing his shirt with the little foxes on it and you find it incredibly charming. It's, like, neat, to start adjusting the way you look at him, to tilt him back into the _hey we've got something going on_ light, rather than the very crisp pin you put in it for so long. It's definitely some adjusting, but figuring out how it works is kind of fun, you think. 

He doesn't kiss you this time, because you're heading back to the office together and you both taste like, just, a _lot_ of onions. He does hold your hand for a block or two.

He doesn't kiss you next time, either, when you decide to embark on a thrift store adventure together to start putting together the next incarnation of your on-camera Burger Chainz look (yes - _yes_, it's finally happening for March's Overboard and no one is as ecstatic as Jenna but you're pretty damn close) and you pitch, hey, he's not gonna be _on_ camera but maybe it would be fun if he had a cyberpunk outfit, too. It's _super_ out of his comfort zone, but he indulges you, which is just incredibly sweet of him, to be open with you that way, and so you think that makes this a date. You honestly don't think you've even seen Clayton in like, a _Halloween costume_ that doesn't include a button-up shirt. You laugh your way through trying on a bunch of weird coats and belts, and yeah, okay, maybe this is on you, because there's a moment where he throws on a slick, nasty-boy brown-black leather jacket, and he looks _hot_, fuck, even with his nice scarf and his real coat still hanging from one arm, and it would probably be so easy to crowd him back into the fitting room and really lay one on him. But it doesn't really occur to you until it's too late, and by then he's changing back, and encouraging you really, truly to get that weird-as-shit mesh thing that comes down to your elbows, because that can be like, _almost_ like you're shirtless under the denim vest, but you won't flash nearly as much armpit as last time if you need to, y'know, gesticulate. He says the word gesticulate and it's adorable, and you buy the funky shirt immediately. He doesn't end up getting anything, though you do strongly consider sneaking back and getting the jacket for him when he's not looking. 

He almost doesn't even kiss you the night he invites you back to his place _specifically for kissing_, and that's because you have maybe, possibly, just a _little_ too much weed. 

"Remember last time?" he says. He's lying on his stomach, on the fire escape, and you said _aren't you cold?_ but he waved you off, he's fine, he's fine, his long legs stretched back under and through the bend of yours where you're still sitting up, back to his exterior wall. 

"Uh, of course I do," you say, and you sort of touch his - ankle, it's the best and safest place you can reach. Your grin goes sly and smoky. "That was the first time you kissed me." 

"Uh, I think you kissed me," he says, raising his finger in the air back toward you like _point of order_. "Gosh, you were so _warm_. You're warm now." You touch his ankle a little harder. You can feel his bones in there, his crummy tendons. "You're always warm."

"Thank you?" you say.

"We should kiss again."

"We should," you agree. "I don't know why we don't." You really don't. You feel like it's been so long. 

"We should kiss right now," he says. 

But neither of you move. He stays tucked under your legs and you stay staring out into the abyss of the brick of the adjacent building, thinking about maybe starting to count them, and then getting a little overwhelmed by like, numbers that are bigger than how old you are, because that makes you feel simultaneously really young and _really_ old. 

You reach for him, with your other hand, and you bend at the waist like you're gonna move toward him and maybe finally kiss him, for real. But the angle is awkward and terrible and _absolutely_ wrong for this, no matter how he tries to twist up to meet you, and eventually he groans because his hipbone is digging into the metal of the fire escape scaffolding, and you both just have to. Completely fumble and readjust to make anything happen. It takes a huge amount of effort to end up sitting crosslegged across from him crosslegged, your knees knocking together. You're alike, you remember, you think to yourself again, you're both so knobbly here. You're both the same size. 

He takes you by the ever-lengthening hair and pulls your face to his. You kiss him and it's sloppy, and it's weak, devoid of energy, soft. You're trying to figure out how you can be so bony and so boneless at once. You're trying to figure out how you can want to kiss him so much and so little, at once. You kiss him back, though, and it mostly feels good. You do it for just a little bit longer, and then you have to go back inside. You're not sure why. Weed. You end up leaving his house before you're all the way sober, and coming back to yourself the rest of the way in your own bedroom, petting Charlie very slowly across his li'l tummy and trying to straighten some stuff out in your re-straightening brain. 

It's Sunday morning when you text him about it. You don't beat around the bush.

_>This never quite like, popped off, did it_

He doesn't even have to ask what you mean. Vibin'.

_>I think it like super didnt?  
>Which is a big shame because I like(d? I mean I still do)  
>Like you so much  
>But it's like. Kind of forced?_

_>YES that's a good word for it. Like we're doing it Too On Purpose  
>It blows and I don't like it  
>I want it to be good_

_>Me too :(  
>We're in like different timelines almost  
>T H E T I M E B R E A K_

You snort a laugh. _Oh jesus don't bring him into it_

_>lol  
>So uh, what. What now_

_>I think we should  
>I dunno  
>Uh  
>Fuck I dunno_

_>Yeah_

_>Yeah  
>I think maybe we just stop? For now anyway?  
>Definitely wouldn't be opposed to trying again sometime that is like, not now, further in the future  
>If you are amenable to the same :)_

_>I think what the gentleman from Kansas proposes is a marvelous idea  
>Motion passes!_

_>Splendid lol  
>(ok but also like...don't feel the need to..."Wait For Me" or something, if something else nice comes along for you, you know!)  
>I like you a lot and I really just want you to be happy  
>And not like, awkward and bored lol_

_>Oh my god a hundred percent same, thank you for saying it, I was thinking it too_

_>Lol we same :men_with_bunny_ears_partying:_

And, as always - 

He's right. 

It's obvious as hell at work the next morning, when despite the very important text conversation you had, literally nothing about your interactions with him changes at all. You're mostly just excited as _fuck_ about the Overboard shoot coming up, to see what kind of wild and crazy bullshit Jenna has cooked up for y'all, and he catches your enthusiasm easily, throws some cyberslang around with you and Brian while you pretend like you're actually gonna get _any_ other work done today before the filming. He slides back out of that lens of you-two-together so, so much more easily than he slid in, and now that you've realized that, the rest of it is falling into place, too, how little either of you were truly feeling it, how robotic and pushed together the whole thing felt in the first place. And maybe that is like, kind of Simone's fault, again; and maybe Burger is a little cooler to Dasha in episode two than their chummy relationship in episode one would seem to have established, but, well, your empathy stat is _really_ low, you're just in character. 

No one's gonna pay attention to you when Brian drops that Vang0 Bang0 backstory bomb, anyway. He goes off on a not-stopping-to-breathe tangent for like, _so_ long, and from behind the camera, Clayton shares with you an exasperated eyeroll. And everything pretty much goes back to normal, because, well - 

Because it wasn't that far of a trip.

> **LET'S JUST BE FRIENDS!!** It appears your adventure with CLAYTON has reached its end. It be like that sometimes! Maybe you'd like to start a new game, by returning to chapter one? Maybe you'd just like to skip back a couple of moves and try something different? Entirely up to you when you're playing GILL OR BE GILLED! :)


	39. Chapter 39

You scoop up another bite of the nachos, just a whole buncha black beans on there, and gesture toward him with it. "You know what, no. I don't think this counts as a date. And I'll tell ya why."

He smirks and raises one eyebrow - oh dang, he is _really_ good at that. "And why's that."

"Because," you say, firmly. "When we go on our first date, it's gonna be because - because _we_ decided to. Right? At our own speed, on - on our own time. We're gonna pick it all ourselves." 

His smirk dissolves out into a soft, fucking _beautiful_ smile. "Yeah," he says. "Yeah, I'll - I'll drink to that." He lifts up the preposterous cocktail. "Oh god, except no, no I fucking won't. Good lord."

You laugh, and realize you've been posturing with your nacho chip this whole time, so you stuff it in your mouth. It's a little too big of a bite and you probably shouldn't be trying to talk around it. You still kind of half-assedly try to say, "Y'wanna 'nother beer?" though, gesturing to his empty bottle.

"Nah, nah, I'm good. Maybe we could get dessert? We should capitalize on Simone's money while we can...."

You split a dessert. It comes out just, like, _disgustingly_ romantic presentation-wise, it's got like a heart-shaped drizzle of something, and you snap a photo on Clayton's phone of the plate plus both your hands flipping Simone the bird and send it to her. It does fucking taste good, though. You relax back into this stupid, stupid evening you're having, which is made infinitely better only by the fact that you are having it with Clayton, and then you get the hell out of there while you still can. 

There's a street corner where you have to split up to hit your separate metro stops, and he pauses you both there for a second, gives you a quick look up and down, and then pulls you in for a tight-clinging hug, warm against the frigid February night. "_Thank you,_" he murmurs in your ear, and he doesn't really specify like, what for, but you think you're kind of getting the idea.

"Sure thing," you tell him when you pull apart, matching his wide bright smile, your breath escaping in foggy white streaks. "Any time."

"G'night, Pat." 

"See y'later."

You keep smiling, all the way home. 

Well. You have about a dozen texts from Simone when you get off the train and start heading up to your place, screaming in the conspicuously perfect spelling and punctuation that you _know_ means she's drunk and trying incredibly hard not to appear drunk. And you ignore absolutely all of them, in favor of the exactly two you got from Clayton, which right now are just. Infinitely more compelling.

_>Hey, I just really wanted to like drive home how much it meant to me that you said all those things about us dating the right way on our own time, or yknow, like that was really sweet and made me feel real good  
>You're a really really good guy Pat, and I like you a whole hell of a lot...you're kind of making me want to ask you out on a real date for real :)_

You sit down, _hard_, on your bed, disturbing Charlie but only enough that he stands up, plods in a circle, and then curls back up at a slightly different angle, and you reread the two texts about seven times. God, and he's saying you made _him_ feel good. Right now, you kind of feel like you want to flop backward and clutch the phone to your chest like a giddy teenager. You - well, okay. You didn't want to presume, and you _did_ hate the sliminess of Simone's meddling all over your shit all night, you definitely made the right choice. But sharing the night alone with Clayton, with none of your coworkers around and no external obligations and some intentionally romo ambiance, felt...just really fucking _good_, okay. It's hard to describe beyond that, beyond the just general buoyant, positive vibes that were kind of floating up into your chest, that felt good, that felt _right_. It's easy to put your feelings for him and the weird little past you've shared on hold when you're at work, because it's - a whole different world, where there's already sort of a framework for how you interact with him in the space, and anyway it's also a place where he specifically doesn't want this part of his life to crop up. It rarely even crosses your mind. It was just...so _nice_, so warm and rich and flavorful and good, to be reminded that you've still got those feelings inside you. (The fact that you're apparently also describing it like a fucking _cake_ notwithstanding.) 

Oh shit you're leaving him on read.

_>If you wanted to do that, uhh  
>I would say, you should do it  
>Or maybe I'll just ask you  
>Clayton Ashley would you like to go on a date with me  
>A real one, no de rocheforts allowed_

_>God yes, zero coworkers please  
>Which is to say yes :) :)_

_>:)  
>you got any places in mind?  
>I was thinking this pizza spot over by my house but I go there like, a lot, I'd be down to try somethin new_

_>uhhhh Basically anywhere that has better drinks than that place tonight lol  
>What was it called? The cupid's bow? Never again_

It's already pretty late, and you've had a couple of drinks, but you end up staying up for another hour or more just texting Clayton back and forth, comparing your taste in beer (he likes a good sour; you were ruined by Germany and now you prefer weird wheat shit) and in ethnic food (you have been _jonesin'_ for some Indian; he's down for basically anything but Italian, pizza not withstanding) and like, now Charles is doing some cute shit so you send him some pictures, and now he can hear some weird noise coming out of the plumbing in his building. You talk about absolute dogshit nothing and it's still better than going to sleep. You can't believe this horrible night Simone inflicted on the two of you has turned out to actually be so amazing. 

You've brushed your teeth and done all the responsible nighttime routine stuff and are worming your way into bed, trying not to dislodge the lump of Charles even though he's in just a _profoundly_ inconvenient spot, your lights out and your phone plugged in on your nightstand. You should set your alarm, even though it's a Saturday, because you've got chores you should probably do, but fuck it. You're falling asleep, nearly asleep. 

You text him, _if this had been a real first date would you have kissed me. Do you do that_. 

You barely keep your eyes open long enough to get his response - _Pat, I nearly almost kissed you anyway_. 

(He kisses you, on the first date. He kisses you on the second date, as you're leaving the pho place down the street to head back to work when your lunch break is over, and he kisses you on the third date when he walks you back up to your apartment door even though he'll just have to turn around and go back the other way to get home. He kisses you quick in the elevator, pretending like you're still not talking about it in the office even though you _know_ everyone knows after the February Overboard shoot and the number of horrible _fireworks_ jokes Simone made, and he kisses you long and lush and slow and cool and _devastating_ on his couch, the beautiful kind of unhurried kissing that's just kissing for kissing's sake and not with an end goal of more, which is very nice to do in a place where Charles can't interrupt - _Oh, but I love Charles,_ says Clayton, and you say yes, yes, he loves you the most even though he's known you less than two months. He also definitely kisses you with an end goal of more, and by "more" you mean "he then fucks you into his kitchen counter, you guess." Clayton Ashley is a _very_ fucking good kisser.)

(Simone still thinks she did this for you, and you just...keep letting her believe that. It's easier than trying to argue. But like, if your actual anniversary were Valentine's Day, you think you'd have to shoot yourself.)

> **SMOOTH MOVES!!** Your adventure with CLAYTON seems to have come to an end. Don't let Simone take all the credit. You should now feel free to start a new game over at chapter 1, or else skip back a step or two and try making different choices - either way! Thanks for playing GILL OR BE GILLED!


	40. Chapter 40

You feel all your air whoosh out of your lungs on a thin-lipped exhale, and your hand can't stop drumming on the table between the two of you, fluttering the edge of your slapdash drawings. "Um," you say, super eloquently. "Wow. Clayton, that's - god, I really do like you, like, so much."

"_But_," he says, knowingly.

"But," you confirm. "But, I dunno, it's been. Uh. I haven't had a _partner_ in, uh, a long-ass time, bud." You try to keep eye contact with him like an adult. You _do_ keep it. It just sucks to do, oof. "I'm not sure I'm like. Ready or equipped to do this thing so fast. It's just, it's a lot. God, this _blows_, I really like you though." You feel your hand coming up to pinch at the bridge of your nose, budging your glasses up and out of the way. "Dammit - "

"Hey, hey, it's okay," Clayton says. He reaches over the corner of the table and sets his hand on top of yours, cool, smooth, reassuring. "I understand, totally, man. I know the way that I, um, that I come at stuff, it can be a little much, sometimes." He coughs, a little. "I might send you a link later actually," he says, softly, almost more to himself. "But Pat, I'm just, I'm _super_ into you, so if you're thinking like, you just need some time - "

"Oh!" you answer, "um, yeah, okay, no, like." Fuck, that was like six words that meant _jack shit_, Patrick. "For sure, if you're. If you're okay with that. I would - " You breathe deep and string together an actual sentence. "I would love a chance to just kind of - sit with this a little bit, maybe, and see where I come out the other side of it at." Well. Close enough. "I really like you," you say again, a little quieter, and you shift your hand under his, so you can stroke your thumb along the bones of his knuckles. "I don't wanna be freaking out on you. I'm sorry." You laugh and tip your voice ironic-wry - "_It's not you it's me_."

That gets a laugh out of him, and he squeezes at your hand just once before pulling back and standing up. "Okay," he says, cute and jokey. "Meeting adjourned. I'm gonna talk to Tara about the new tripods and mounts? Because, jesus, the one just won't even hold tension anymore - "

"Yeah, it's real great for if we just wanna make a bunch of videos of the floor." You stand up, too, smiling gratefully at him for the beautiful, explicit out he has just given you. "Here, take this, if it helps," you say, and offer him your diagrams, which he accepts. "And uh. Th - thanks, Clay."

"Absolutely." He smiles at you, sweet and gentle, and then darts in and brushes just a quick, beardy kiss to the edge of your cheekbone. "Keep me posted."

"Y...yeah." And he ducks out of the meeting room, and you slip out right behind him, and you head back to your desks, and back to work. 

The schedule's shaping up. You put yourself down for January's Overboard, which has, disappointly, been penciled in as _Potion Explosion (Simone)_ and not _Cyberpunk Red part II_ \- you guess the jury's still out on that, huh, despite Jenna promising that Tara promised that you'd have heard back one way or the other by now. You also see where Brian's asked for you on Unraveled, which you accept, too, and he notices immediately and sends you a prelim script that's just, whoooof, that sure is a lot of New Year's and Having A Birthday-inspired, passage of time-related existentialism wrapped up in some glib shit about video game time travel, huh. Kicking the new year off with a bang. You're into it, if you're honest - if anything was ever gonna even come close to following him fucking _shaving his mustache off on camera_ at the end of last year, you think it might be this one. You just hope you and Clayton can uphold your end of the deal.

Oh, jeez, you really are on every project with Clayton, huh. He's got nothing to do with merch, at least, but he's shooting everything you're in, including your solo project about hard magic systems that's still kind of loosely coming together. It's creeping up on you, very slowly but very inescapably, that if you eff things up with Clayton, it's gonna be _hard_ to navigate this office. He's literally _everywhere that you are_. Ohh, christ. Yeah you _definitely_ need to take your time with this one. Okay.

Okay, so you take your time.

Friday passes much like your unscheduled parts of Thursday did: roll into the office a little bit late, toss some workplace banter around, answer some bullshit emails, keep poking at the schedule. Julia hits you up for those shitty photoshops and you send 'em her way. Simone clearly doesn't really have anything to do till Monday and occupies herself blasting you some memes. Clayton works diligently, unobtrusively, smiles at you when you walk by but doesn't make a fuss about anything, and again you find yourself mouthing _thank you_ to him with no further explanation. Fuck, he's cute, he's wearing one of his expensive Pokemon-print shirts - you've noticed that he wears them on Fridays, like a fun end-of-the-week treat to himself, and then you realize that you're noticing things about Clayton's wardrobe choices, and you do a hard exhale and try to shake yourself out of that - and he's got his feet propped up on the chair next to his, rolling it back and forth a little every couple of seconds. Something twists up inside you, and it makes you wanna, just, really double down on figuring this out.

(Friday afternoon, though, you do get a DM from him, that's just a little _:)_ and a link to a very informative wiki page about _demisexuality_. It's a term you've heard before, but looking at it head-on, and having a concrete context, a concrete _person_ to apply it to, it's - it's eye-opening. And also _incredibly_ sweet, and an _incredibly_ big deal, and not exactly making your situation any easier.)

You think about it all weekend, which is probably - not great. It starts to drive you a little insane, all your thoughts about the truly _excellent_ hookup after his party cocktailing up with the general miasma of attraction-affection-anxiety-dread that the conversation after your meeting had left you with, and also the little beats and bites of him that have nothing to do with either, from last year and this week, from his videos, from his articles, from his Instagram. You find yourself, ill-advisedly, rewatching _We Fought A Zoo_ episodes, of all things, as if staring into the past while you're doing your laundry because Charlie ralphed on your good sheets is gonna be the oracle that you need for this situation. You are so enamored with the way Past Clayton laughs at Past Patrick's jokes. (And also still just - _so_ disturbed by that Bee Movie shit. Seriously, Jerry, who greenlit that.) 

You make it most of the way through next week without, uh, incident. It's kind of always at the forefront of your mind, though, considering you see him every day at work; especially when he like, you dunno, for _example_, beckons you over to his work station with a quick call of _Hey, Pat, can you gimme a second pair of eyes?_ and so you lope over to his computer and check it out, the way the clips he's pulled seem to do something janky audio-wise when he plays them off the harddrive compared to when they're in the cloud, yeah, you agree, that is pretty bizarre, but see the problem is that now you're so _close_. You've got one hand to the back of his chair and the other leaned down onto the surface of the desk, taking the mouse from him even, clicking around and trying to help, and all the time aware of how close his face is to your collarbone, close enough that you'd swear you can feel him breathing. It feels like - like the fire escape. It _transports_ you, a little, okay. And you'd be an idiot to try to tell yourself that Clayton isn't noticing, so you just give him a weak but honest smile, mostly fond and partially just embarrassed, and he smiles kindly and knowingly back. 

"It's okay," he says, softly, permissively, and that just fucking _kills_ you, and so this is the part of a routine Thursday morning where you reluctantly admit to yourself that this may be harder than you thought it was going to be. 

You just. You weren't expecting to _like_ him so much, is the thing! It's not that Clayton isn't charismatic, or charming, or _fun_, but he's also hardly the largest personality in the office, and you - maybe a little unkindly, yikes - find yourself surprised that he's just got this magnetic pull on you. It's that _same hat_ energy, you figure. Like recognize like. (No, that's not how magnets work. Shit. Whatever.) You have zero problem, you realize, imagining the two of you together in something fun and comfortable - kind of like the way you are right now, friends and coworkers and chill guys around the office, but just like, cranked up a level or two. The level that includes kissing. (_God_ Clayton is a good kisser, which is another unkind-surprise, maybe the beard was throwing you, but _damn_.) The problem comes in when you have to extrapolate out the three or four further steps to being in a capital-r _Relationship_ with - with _anyone_, okay, this is not Clayton-exclusive, this is your own dumb shit twisting in on itself again. The anxiety garden-path of _official on social media ?_ to _meeting his family??_ to _we will ultimately either break up or do some marriage-adjacent thing because that is the inevitable terminus of every relationship_ is something that your idiot brain just _does_, now, and you've just. You've hooked up with Clayton all of one time, and that was all of three weeks ago. You've got an Unraveled to shoot, for chrissakes. If you're already here, in this wacky-ass place, you might never fucking make it. 

Maybe you need - some help? From somebody who _is_ a larger personality in the office, you think. You know Simone doesn't do the whole, like, romance _thing_, so maybe she'd be able to cut through your bullshit. Or maybe Brian, who's also had super-serious, super-long-lasting relationships, god he's left the _country_ for people, and whose anxiety you know is sometimes comparable to your own, maybe? Fuck, dude, you'll try anything.

(Well, except. Except you're remembering so clearly that basically the first thing out of Clayton's mouth was _It's not the kind of thing I like talking about at work_. And Simone and Brian are very definitely like. Part of "work," at least where matters concerning two people they work with are concerned. Fuck, maybe you _shouldn't_ say anything.)

> ASK SIMONE FOR HELP. --> PROCEED TO [CHAPTER 42](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21918814/chapters/52318297).  
ASK BRIAN FOR HELP. --> PROCEED TO [CHAPTER 43](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21918814/chapters/52318366).  
KEEP THEM OUT OF IT AND SALLY FORTH ON YOUR OWN. --> PROCEED TO [CHAPTER 44](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21918814/chapters/52318498).


	41. Chapter 41

You feel it play on the like, greenscreen background of your brain, like a movie montage - your holiday hookup segueing into cute fun hangout sessions, into real-ass relationship-ass _dates_, into holding him, touching him, more deep kisses and more fire-escape joints and flirty loaded jokes and Charles betraying you because he loves Clayton the best. You feel like it's cold-clocking you; you feel like, if you could see it from outside of yourself, it ought to be engulfing your whole head, like some kind of vortex of tiny video clips, cheesy eighties sci-fi "virtual reality" style. You feel like you shouldn't be able to breathe. 

You breathe so, just, _remarkably_ fucking easily. You hold your hand out along the table, palm up, and before your B-movie brain even catches up to your lungs and your mouth, you hear yourself saying, "Yeah. Let's do it." 

Clayton blinks, hard, a _lot_, flicks his gaze from your hand to your face and back to your hand, and you see his own twitch and flex like he's about to slide it into yours but he's holding back. "Um, whoa," he says. "Are you, are you _sure_?"

"Oh, not in the slightest," you say, grinning, wiggling your fingers till he smiles. "No joke this is fucking terrifying. It's just that it also sounds fucking amazing." You're still wiggling your fingers, it's on some serious Rocket Power shit, and he finally relents, hanging his head, huffing out a little disbelieving laugh and slowly slipping his hand on top of yours, till it stills. 

"Patrick..." he says, still, like, trepidatious. 

"Look, I know, I know." You squeeze at his hand, a little, because it feels like the right thing to do. "I know I'm just incredibly likely to fuck this up. But...Clay... - Wait, are you cool with - ?"

"Oh! Uh, you can, if you want, I'm not like, into it specifically, I'm uh, I'm neutral."

"Thomas _hates_ if you call him Thom."

"I know," Clayton laughs. 

"Clayton," you say, very serious and overenunciated. "We should date. We should date so hard." You say it goofy, make your face goofy, to couch it in a context that you're used to, with him - workplace banter and vidya-game jokes and sending each other memes, and shit - but you hope that your conviction and how much you (actually, fully surprisingly-to-yourself, for real) want to _do this thing_ comes through. You think the uncomfortably tight grip with which you are now holding his hand, oops, probably contributes.

He says, "Pat Gill, would you like to go on a date with me?"

You say, "Is it _a'ight_ if I kiss you at work, just this once?" 

You kiss him at work, just this once. You push up from your chair by leaning your weight onto your joined hands, and his slips out of yours to come up and hold around your wrist, and you bend over to him where he's sitting back in his chair till your hair is falling around your face and into his face and you kiss him. You remember instantly like a goddamn riding-a-bike metaphor, what kissing him was like before, how to slot your free hand around his cheek and draw his tongue into your mouth, and you try to make this just as firm and serious as your verbal confirmation, sealing it in, saving your spot, here. His thumb strokes long and firm along the shape of your forearm, and his beard catches against the beginnings of yours, and it feels _good_. 

You for sure are terrified, is the thing. It's been approximately a thousand years (two, two years and some change, Allegra quoted your _whomst_ at you too too recently for it to be too far from your miserable mind) since you had any kind of serious relationship, and that one was obviously. Well. The takeaway here being that you are unfamiliar and out of practice as shit, with the entirety of this business, and you feel confident that you're gonna stick your foot in it or show your whole ass or whatever the idiom is, just fuck it all up. But after a couple of weeks apart, a whole lot of wandering thoughts, and _this_ moment, specifically right here right now watching Clayton go vulnerable and serious and soft all because of _you_, you think, goddamn, it's absolutely gonna be worth it. Clayton is gonna be worth it. The warmth blooming in your chest and the vortex swirling around your head will reach equilibrium, somehow, and you'll walk out the other side into just - the best thing that's happened to you in. Well. In approximately a thousand years.

Also for now you need to walk out the other side of the conference room door and back into the bullpen of the office. You and Clayton slide out, at once but not _together_, doing your best not to smile just too incredibly conspicuously. You do really respect that part of how he wants to do this and do it right is not getting the rest of the office involved. And also, it's kind of...it feels good, okay, to have this bright sort of secret thing without Susana fangirling about it yet, or Brian trying to pedantically recommend you seafood restaurants, or Simone quadruple-messaging you on _Slack_, which you use for _work, Simone,_ about "the dick." You are by your own admission absolutely the worst in the office at pokerfacing through hidden role games, so you're sure everyone's gonna figure it out pretty fast eventually, but you wanna hang onto it for as long as you can.

"Oh hey," you say, oh so fuckin' casually, "here, you gonna need my diagram for when you talk to Tara about this camera stuff?"

"Oh yeah," says Clayton, "thanks." You hand over your scribblings from the meeting, and then you return to your desk, and Clayton heads back to his desk, and you get back to work. 

He does send you a message almost right away though, that's just, _:)_. You send back _:^)_, and he makes some impish little joke about your nose, so you double down and lampshade it and make it very explicitly about your dick, and you can hear him snickering from his computer and now it _is_ going to get conspicuous, and so to keep this shit on track, you just straight up ask him to get pizza with you on Tuesday.

He says, _it's a date. :)_

You meet, an hour or two after work on Tuesday, at this place you like, near your apartment, where the interior lighting is frankly _totally_ bizarre (the two of you, as Video Making Professionals, get plenty of material out of that) and the white pizza is, if you may say so, off the fuckin' charts. There's a grungy MAME cabinet along the back wall that looks like it hasn't been properly cleaned in over a month, but Clayton surprises you by sinking a bunch of quarters into it and then surprises you even more by absolutely _wrecking_ you at the JoJo's Bizarre Adventure game from the 90s. 

"Holy shit, how did you just crush me three times with _old Joseph_?" you laugh, wiping your grimy hands on the thighs of your jeans, like it's the slippery buttons and joystick that are making you eat shit on this one and not just Clayton's mad skillz.

Clayton angles his torso just slightly toward you. "Patrick, I work for a _video games website_," he says, pretend-condescending. "I am actually good at games sometimes." He gives you a, whooo, just a cute flirty up-and-down look, and hip-checks you a little, where you stand close, so close to both get your hands on the machine. A flutter that has nothing to do with the very incredibly good pizza hits into your gut. And he _knows_ it, you can tell that he knows, you're the same, so he pushes a little closer, pivots out a little farther, till you're - not _trapped_, between him and the cabinet, not physically anyway, he's barely blocking half of you and there's a clear path if you wanted to leave, at any time, dip back over to your table and eat a few more bites of pizza or think about ordering another beer. But there's still some kind of Clayton Ashley aura about him that keeps you rooted to the spot in a way that you, like, kind of, don't _want_ to fight, where you're turned around now with your back wedged into the cabinet's edge, twisted, wrong-footed in a way that definitely isn't _not_ horny, okay, just. _Jeez_. It's going to your head. And also places that are not your head.

You forgot, how _good_ it feels, when it's new and fresh and untested. There's that thrum of urgency, like you gotta beat the learning curve, like you need to always be taking in and cataloguing every new sensation and bit of information that you receive when you're together. Maybe that's the completionist in you. But something about that strikes you at a strange crossways angle - as you're boxing up the rest of the pizza to go, and Clayton asks you to carry it and you of course say yes, leading the way back to your place - when it's filtered through the lens of him. (The gobo of him? Is that a better analogy - your lighting talk at the pizza joint got you all fucked up.) Every vibe you've shared with Clayton prior to, like, _dating him, oh gosh_, has been chill and well-water deep and cool, and that's _incredibly_ good, too, is the thing. It's almost like you get two Claytons, or at least the - the 3-D glasses version of him, with the red side and the blue side superimposed. You can be relaxing into your couch with him, knee-against-knee, not even looking at each other, picking at the rest of the pizza, (stopping Charlie from picking at the rest of the pizza,) skimming through YouTube poop videos on your TV and upsetting him with Muppet-related Vine compilations till he's laughing and protesting and averting his eyes into your shoulder, and, _and_, you can also be sinking deep, deep into the couch cushions because he's pressing you into them and exploring your miserably sensitive neck with his whiskery mouth. 

"Oh shit you gotta - " You're panting, just _trembling_ for breath, as Clayton bites and sucks into the space just under the hinge of your jaw, his beard brushing and teasing a little further down - "You gotta understand how fucking dirty-pool this is. Ohhh christ." His mouth, which you can feel _smiling_ against you, traces down and further in toward your adam's apple. You've still got your back flat to the back of the sofa, your head lolling a little, and you reach for him, his shoulder or the back of his head, not sure if you mean to push him off you or pull him closer, fuck, _damn_, but Clayton - catches your wrist, keeps your hand still, immobilized in midair, useless. You feel his thumb at your pulse point, almost like, almost like last week, in the meeting room, and you fucking _moan_, okay, you're not too proud. You sit back and take it as he goes to town on your neck. 

He doesn't stay the night, Tuesday. You don't even make it past just kissing on the couch, when he very graciously lets your hand and your neck free after a few minutes of gentle, like, lawful-evil exploration and comes back up to kiss your mouth proper. After Charlie begs a few scritches off him, he heads home, taking a slice of lukewarm pizza for the road, and you kiss him again at the door, and then go to the mirror to make sure he didn't leave any super incriminating marks in the hollow of your throat. Or maybe - to make sure he _did_. (He didn't, of course, because he's smarter and more professional than that. But the part of you that is just a little bit disappointed is larger than you should probably cop to.) He doesn't stay the night next time, either; you guys are going on like, _dates_. You're taking it slow, for certain definitions of slow anyway, because Clayton's actually trying to do this thing right, and you're just trying to do this thing Clayton's way. He's a little more particular than you, and you're happy when hes's happy, so it's a no-brainer. Also, you can't lie, it's...relaxing, _refreshing_, woof, to let someone else take the lead on this kind of shit for once. You can kind of eyeball into the past at your last relationship, and, just, _man_ does the patriarchy suck shit. 

You're shooting night two of two on the new Unraveled, Brian's season-three opener clusterfuck about time travel, with plans for the three of you to go out for drinks afterward in what's steadily becoming a mini-tradition. You're thinking you might invite Jeff, too, if he's still in the building, just to kind of spare Brian the third-wheeliness of it all. (He knows. Most of the office has kind of cottoned on, by now, even without the two of you saying anything. It's probably your own dumbass fault, but like, sometimes he makes a quick, under-the-radar joke that really _gets_ you and you can't help but lose yourself laughing fondly, and sometimes he unexpectedly rolls his sleeves up crisp to just under his elbows and you can't help but _stare_ at the tick of the tendons in his forearms.) The shoot is off to a great fuckin' start: Turns out your camera hasn't even been recording for nearly half an hour. 

"Are you," Brian gapes, "are you _serious_?" He's already done like, two weird things with his tie, and stumbled through a section of the script where the gag is literally an obscene amount of alliteration, tongue-twister-style, and yeah, just, _none_ of that is going to be on camera 2, at all. Fuck.

"_Fuck_," you groan again. "How the fuck did it - dude I am _so_ sorry," but Brian's already pacing off to camera left, the heel of his thumb pressed against his eye, his other hand absently fondling his tie again, burying himself behind the curtain - 

"Patrick. _Patrick, the alliteration_."

"I know, I know - "

"How the fuck did you - "

"Guys, hey, hey," Clayton butts in, and you both snap to look at him. "I think if - Pat, fix your camera, for one, do you know what you goofed up?" You immediately nod yeah, yes, you're already halfway to fixing it. He's got the script pulled up on his tablet, he's skimming down it and not looking at either of you, just gesturing toward you both in turn when he speaks and issuing soft instructions. "We back up to just after the tongue-twister, if Brian can match action well enough we can just get a cut-away to 2 then, the only bit we probably have to redo is the - " he scrolls a little further - "the Robot On Wheels bit, that's a strong aside, yeah."

"Yeah," Brian confirms, and his breath sounds steadier.

"So we can just fake the rest with my footage and keep going. Pat? Does that sound good to you?" He raises his head to look at you, and you find yourself just - nodding, again, not speaking. You feel like it doesn't quite need an answer because it didn't quite feel like. Like a question. 

You fix your shit, and Brian fixes his shit, and there might be a minor gaffe on the continuity of the tie, but like - this is a time travel video, and the Unraveled stans are insane anyway, they'll probably find fifty reasons why it's inconsistent on purpose, conspiracy theory-style. Fuck, thank god for Clayton. Your heart swells in your chest at your boyfriend being a badass at his job. (Ew, and then it contracts just one notch because you thought the word "boyfriend." Someone please come up with a better way to say that.) It's smooth sailing after that, Brian getting a little loose and goofy with it by the end as usual in a way that leaves Clayton laughing _breathlessly_ hard, fully silent to keep the take clean like a damn professional but just doubled over losing it, and it's _so_ cute, and then before you know it the three of you are at happy hour and you're laughing at Brian, again, but this time it's because he's drinking a ludicrously out of character frat-bro beer. He insists he's here to _crack open a cold one with the boys_, and that the two of you - The Boys, apparently - should be doing the same instead of betraying him, and Clayton stares him straight in the eye and maintains as he puts back a long swig of his rum-and-diet, and you roast Brian for dragging that meme into the new decade. 

"Fine, you jabronis, whatever," says Brian, but it's fond, and he's smiling. "I was gonna get the next round, but - "

"Patrick'll get it," Clayton says, swiftly, and you glance over to him and he's looking straight at you, in a way that looks, like - you and Clayton are good at reading each other, okay, and he looks casual but like, _too_ casual. Casual on purpose. "Won't you?" he prompts again, gentle, but definitely digging a little, and you swallow a little, and nod, a little. 

"Yeah, uh, sure," you say, and you try to figure out what that feeling is, that stairsteps up your spine, skeleton xylophone. 

You guys make it through round one, first, though, and Brian tells some story about some uncharacteristically bizarre shit his otherwise relatively normie brother did over the holiday break, and you give them the update on the merch stuff you've been working on, and Clayton floats a video concept about dating sims that makes Brian yelp _hey!_ because apparently he's already digging into some stuff like that for a Valentine's-themed Unraveled pitch, and then it's time for round two, and you don't even question it, you just do it. Brian gets another beer, if you can believe it. 

When you're back with the drinks Brian has apparently just slipped off to brave the line for the men's room, and it's just you and Clayton, standing at your dumb tall chairless table, and he reaches for your hand so you give it, and he says, "Hey, uh, sorry, I hope. I hope that wasn't weird."

"Weird like how?" you say, and it's literally as you're saying the words that it occurs to you that oh, yeah, maybe some stuff has been. Slightly weird?

"Um, okay, maybe I wouldn't be saying this if I hadn't already had a drink," he says, with a bashful little chuckle, his head ducking. "But it's um. It's kind of something I'm, uh, into."

"Guys buying you drinks?"

"Guys doing what I tell them," he says, his voice low and serious, and there's that stairstep feeling again, but this time it's more - in your gut, in the dark space behind your eyes - the feeling of when you _miss_ a stair. "A dominant, submissive, thing." 

He gestures back and forth between the two of you, but uh, _yeah_, you kind of understood whomst was whom in the equation, you think. "Oh," you say, like that helps anything, and slowly, but snowballing faster as they come, you start - remembering, putting together, quick details you hadn't really thought of as _connected_ until now, suddenly, with this frame to hang them in. The way he talked you and Brian back to normalcy at the shoot just now. His posture against you against the MAME cabinet at the pizza place, close and crowding. How easy it is to let him steer the course of your whole - dating - boyfriends - _thing_. The curl of his hand around your wrist, god, _multiple_ times, holding your hand aloft as you kissed, grounding you in the meeting room, pressing you close to his chest that very first time. And like. _Oh_.

You haven't said anything more profound than that, and he suddenly looks worried, which you hate. "It's fine if you're not into it!" he says quickly, his hand on yours against the table shaking-nudging-pulsing just a couple times. "Ohhh, my gosh, I like you so so much, Pat, it's not like it's. Like. A dealbreaker or anything. I obviously don't want to do it if it's wigging you out." You nod back at him in kind of the same rhythm, needing to reassure him.

"No, no, it's cool, I'm not wigging out, we're good," you tell him. "It's, uh, it's dope of you to share that with me, man, thank you."

"It's the rum maybe a little."

You grin. "Even so." You take a sip of your own bourbon, actually, because it does sound like it's probably helping. You try real, _real_ hard to place that stairstep feeling, in your bones, in your lungs. "I think," you start, "I think...uh... I..."

> YEAH, FEELS GOOD, MAN. YOU COULD GET INTO THE SUB THING. --> PROCEED TO [CHAPTER 46](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21918814/chapters/52318576).  
NAH. YOUR KINK IS NOT MY KINK AND THAT'S OKAY. --> PROCEED TO [CHAPTER 47](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21918814/chapters/52318606).


	42. Chapter 42

You don't really take a lunch, on Thursday, you're not really feeling going out alone when there's perfectly good Chex Mix right here in the office, but you do get a hankering for something a little more caffeinated than Vox coffee, so you slip out just super-quickly and go to the nearest place that has halfway decent cold brew. (Yes, you're still drinking cold coffee drinks in January. You're from Maine, you don't give a shit.) On impulse, you pick up something for Simone, too, bitter and bold with just a drop or two of chocolate, which you think is the kind of shit she likes. You bring it to her desk when you get back and she gives you an insanely suspicious look. Which, yeah, that tracks.

"Tha-ank you, Patrick," she says, slowly. "How very courteous of you, to what do I owe the pleasure."

You slurp your own coffee dramatically, in an effort to be goofy enough that the situation lightens up a little. It doesn't really work. "I, uh, kind of need to ask you for some help with something later," you finally say. "That's all."

"Okay, well, that doesn't make me confused or nervous at _all_, but also I'm really enjoying this beverage in the meantime so uh, sure," she says. She very graciously lets you drop it, at that point, and you slink back to your own computer, to click at some Squaresoft clips and then hopefully, later, some Blizzard clips, because hopefully you will finally be done with the Squaresoft clips, jesus Christ you never want to see low-poly Yuffie Kisaragi ever again. It takes you about another hour, and the entirety of the cold brew, to work yourself up to actually sending Simone the message.

_>Okay so that thing I need help with  
>Is my uhhhhhh  
>Relationship  
>with Clayton.  
> :grimace: :grimace: :grimace: please be chill about this jesus_

You can hear Simone gasp a delighted, scandalized gasp from her station, but you don't think anyone else really notices or pays attention - she's _always_ reacting dramatically to shit - and then that's the end of it, out loud anyway, and you breathe like two percent easier. That's phase one out of the way at least.

_>Patrick Gill!!!!!  
>Honestly there was a little bit of energy but I thought I was just reading into it!!!  
>LOVE this for you, that's fucking adorable  
>Wait what is the issue??_

You grimace, for real, in real life, and end up typing with just one eye open, wincing at the screen. This is - like, at least you're doing it textually and in a place where you can keep your face mostly hidden, but - _ugh_.

_>Clayton wants something super duper serious  
>Like big-deal boyfriendy stuff  
>Whereas I'm currently like.... holy shit okay but we spent one night together and I didn't even stay over  
>And that's just a big fucking jump for me_

_>WAIT OKAY I KNOW IT'S NOT THE POINT  
>BUT HOW WAS THE DICK_

You groan and plant your forehead flat on the desk.

_>You're right, that super is not the FUCKING point, simone_

_>Okay okay okay I'm sorry, please go back to pouring your heart out_

_>No, fuck this, you are just laughing at my suffering, fuck you_

_>Nooooo Patrick please  
>Thank you for the coffee I will behave  
>Please tell me what is the part where you need my help_

_>I just  
>I really fucking like him, okay? I WANT to be able to say yes to what he's asking, I want so badly to get to the place where I can deal with this  
>But I'm fucking divorced at 32 and I've got shit for brains  
>Turn my brain off for meeeee_

_>:smiling_imp: Turn your brain off you say?  
>I have the PERFECT bottle of gin for THAT!!_

_>Oh god  
>Is that  
>Really  
>How will the last two times we've hung out have involved getting drunk in some way_

_>Shut the FUCK up and let Mama simone medicate you with alcohol  
>We will loosen your lips ;) ;) ;)_

_>Disgusting  
>But also sure why the fuck not come over tomorrow night my roommate's gonna be out I think_

_>Yesssssss :tumbler_glass:_

And tomorrow night, Simone comes over. And she brings gin. 

You order Indian food takeout for the two of you, because you need the insanely good flavor of some fuckin' rad fish curry to counterbalance the _burn_ of Simone's very good, very bad alcohol. She makes you pound two doubles right away, barely deigning to let you drink some water before round three so you don't get just completely boned. She herself is just drinking right out of the bottle.

"Okay!" she says, when she's finally decided it's Time™, and you don't think you'd call it yelling, but it sounds way too loud to be regular talking. That's Simone for you. "Let's recap. We know the facts." She counts off on her fingers. "One, Clayton Ashley is a fucking dreamboat and he's in love with you."

You choke up, a little, on your rescue-water, not a spit-take but not _not_ a spit-take, jesus. "In - in _love_ is, uh, incredibly strong - "

"Details, details," she says. You're sitting on the arm of the couch, double-fisting your glass of gin and your big plastic cup of water, really not sure what you're supposed to do with your hands. She's standing in the middle of the floor, and she's bobbing and swinging her arms like a sports coach. This is ridiculous. "Two, you've got a big gay crush on Clayton also."

"That is - not incorrect."

She grins, like she's just gotten you to spill some big secret. "Three, will you _please_ tell me what the dick was like."

"Ask me again in three more shots," you groan.

"_Noted_," she says, and she cackles like a witch. God, it _carries_. "Great, so, four: you're an absolute sad sack divorcee and you're afraid of commitment - "

"Jesus christ."

" - so when Clayton was like, Patrick let's be boyfriends forever, you were like, magic eight ball _ask again later_?" Her voice lilts up, just like, _painfully_ incredulous and unimpressed, and you chug a couple more big swallows of your alcohol and slide, sliiide down from the arm of the sofa to the sofa proper, so now your legs are up and hooked over the arm at the knee, gangling out all over the place, unsteady and uncomfortable. Uncomfortable, yet oddly satisfying. Oh, that's the gin doin' its thing. 

"You're making me sound like a dick."

"You a little bit are!" she tells you. "The longer you leave Clayton hanging like this the more of an asshole you are."

"He told me to take my time," you protest, weakly.

"Yeah, because he's the nicest cutest motherfucker on the face of the planet," she says. "But can you imagine, like, the other way around? Like if he put the freeze on you and you were just _waiting_ for an answer?"

You do try to imagine it, through the fog that's rolling in over your brain, and fuck, it seems - real shitty. You can almost feel how hard your anxiety would be tweaking, all day every day, waiting for the shoe to drop. Like when someone calls you on the phone out of nowhere instead of just texting, and you have to wonder what kind of weird shit tragedy has made them feel the need to do this, only this one's lasting for - _shit_, you've left Clayton dangling on this hook for like, a _week_.

"Oh, god," you say, more to yourself than Simone, "I'm a shithead."

"Maybe so!" she cries, exactly like that meme.

"I just don't know what to _do_."

"You like him so much!" she says. Every single sentence from her mouth now has an exclamation point. You have both had a lot of gin.

"I do!" you agree.

"Then what are you so afraid of!"

"I don't know!"

"Bullshit!" she insists. "You have to _know_ or you wouldn't be _afraid_, you would just _do_ it instead of being such a goddamn coward." She claps her hands together, because they are somehow not holding the bottle anymore, oh, where did that go. The coffee table, okay, cool. Your glass is empty so you fumble out for some more, even though it's just. _Very_ not enjoyable to drink. "C'mon, what are you afraid of. Patrick, you gotta."

"I'm afraid...of," you manage. You take another swig. "I'm afraid of when it ends. When I fuck it all up, and, and it crashed and burns, and we still have to work together, so it's all just, everything is fucking awful."

"Patrick!!" she yells, and oh god _is_ she really yelling, now, are your neighbors gonna complain. It's a Friday night and it's not _too_ late, right, surely this is forgivable at least for now. "Pat you can't wuss out over it _ending_ before it even _starts_!"

"I don't want to fuck it up! I don't want him to hate me when it falls to shit!"

You think you're making total sense, but Simone _groans_ like you're being the biggest idiot in the world. "_Pat_, c'mon, you gotta give yourself some credit, good _lord_ your self-esteem is in the shitter."

"I've had a _lot_ of gin, Simone, I don't know what you expected."

"And! And! You gotta give _Clayton_ more credit." She's crossed to the sofa, now, and is sitting down next to you, real close, her body turned toward yours. You finally flip your legs down off the arm of the sofa to sit like a regular person, and she takes your face in both her hands, looks deep into your eyes. Up this close your glasses can't do their job and your eyes just kind of _hurt_, yikes. "Don't you think that he's. Like. He's a mature and responsible adult who will _handle his shit_ if something gets weird. You guys aren't gonna have some massive high school teenager blowout if it breaks bad, my dude. You're just gonna - like - okay, you and Clayton are the _same_, though. You're both two lanky introvert weirdos who've seen too many action movies and wear the same outfit every day."

"He wears his Pokemon shirts on Fridays," you mumble.

She smacks her hand into your face a little and flops dramatically back on the couch. "Oh my gooodddd, listen to yourself." 

You listen to yourself. You - you like Clayton. A lot. Even drunk you knows that that's true. You really want to be with him, and he really wants to be with you, if you could just. If you could listen to yourself. If you could listen to _Simone_, pointing out what you'd already kind of sussed out, that you and Clayton are vibing together in this way that doesn't quite extend to anyone else in the office. (Russ, maybe, says your drunk brain, but he's not in the office, and also ssshhh so not the point.) If you guys are coming at this from the same place, trying to accomplish the same thing, then surely there's just like - a zone, in the middle, where you perfectly overlap, where things feel comfortable for both of you and where everything's gonna be okay. Clayton can have you as an all-hands-on-deck, fully boyfriended boy, and you can have Clayton as a sweet, reliable constant that you don't have to constantly be afraid of losing the moment you stick your fucking foot in it. (You said "constant" _and_ "constantly" in there at the same time. You're drunk, okay, _ssshhhh_.)

"I gotta get in the zone," you tell her, very earnestly.

"Well, Britney," she says, "that is a step in the right fucking direction."

You both stop drinking and just ride the rest out, and oofa _doofa_ is it not good. You are extraordinarily thankful that you don't barf curry because that sounds like an absolutely terrible time. Simone does end up having to crash on your couch; you offer her a pair of your boxers and an old shitty t-shirt you got for free from some E3 presser. She declines a shower, but does wash her face pretty extensively and help herself to your mouthwash and slurp down, just, a _shitton_ of water. You give her a blanket that you know Charlie likes, and hope he doesn't decide to sleep with her instead of you. Oh, and fuck, you hope Quinn isn't too weirded out by your coworker sleeping on the sofa. The largely consumed bottle of gin will probably explain itself.

You're about to crash for the night but you stop at your bedroom door and shoot her one more look. "Okay, like, thank you," you say to her, soft and a little defeated. "I - that feels like it shouldn't have helped as much as it did, but it _did_. I'm glad I asked you."

"Yeah, yeah," she says, waving you off. "Romance is boring, all the problems are so _stupid_, nine times out of ten it's just the bottom projecting their own issues onto the relationship as a whole. Case in point," she adds, tipping her hand toward you. 

You scowl at her so hard your head spins, a little. "Wha - _Simone_, I don't, I'm not - "

"Mmm-_hmmmm_," she drawls, and it's a good thing you're so dizzy, have to lean your hand on the doorframe to keep steady, or else you'd be kicking her ass, you're sure of it. 

You fall asleep, ibuprofen on the night stand, Charlie fully on Simone's lap, the traitor, thinking about - Clayton - the charming way his eyes shine when he smiles, which you never noticed before you kissed him, the cool gentle-steady touch of his hands and the feel of his cock driving between your slick thighs, and how he laughs _exactly_ right at your jokes, like he really gets them exactly the way you meant them, like you guys are vibin' on the same brainwave, and also about Monday morning, when you're gonna tell him that you're ready to be his boyfriend now, please, if he'll have you.

Simone's gone by the time you wake up, your loaner sleep clothes folded at the foot of your bed and your head _pounding_, and so you have to text it to her, instead: 

_>Uncut, and just as long as you think it is._

And then you sit up, and guzzle down some water and some painkillers, and as you're sitting there, you kind of think, Fuck it. 

_>hey man, dyou wanna grab a coffee?_

And turns out, he does. 

It's remarkably easy, in the long run, especially considering your hangover; the coffee is doing its dark sorcery, surely. Now, don't get it twisted, of course it's not _too_ easy - you are still Patrick Gill, you still suck ass at delicately handling emotional situations, please press F for the parallel universe in which you are free from anxiety and the societal handicap of an upbringing saturated with toxic masculinity - but sitting across from him, in his shirt patterned with the little foxes and that scarf you remember from that night on his fire escape (it's a sort of oatmeal color, in the daylight), it's just... You just like Clayton Ashley too goddamn much to let your own idiocy stand in the way of this for any longer. You're still thinking, a little bit, about what Simone said, (which you're honestly astonished you remember, woof,) about what the situation must be from his side, just hanging on and waiting for you for over a week, and he deserves so much better than that, god. You owe him. 

You tell him, "So, listen, I um. I think I got my head out of my ass, finally."

"That's reassuring to hear," he laughs.

"And I - " You reach along the table and take his hand, and it feels so hugely cheesy in your brain, but you think it's the right thing to do, probably, in a moment like this. You're out of practice but hopefully you're not a total moron. "I wanna do this thing. With you. We should. Yeah? Yeah."

"_Yeah_," he says, and his grin is so bright and excited that you feel yours twist up to match it, wide and ridiculous, and he leans up to kiss you across the table, and you move to meet him, and then your head reels horribly sideways with the sudden movement and you sit abruptly back down and oh, god, no - 

But blessedly, you don't hangover-vomit and ruin your big cheesy boyfriendy moment. You don't even knock either of your drinks over. You just settle back in your chair, and he tries again, and comes all the way to you this time, just a soft kiss to your mouth, and then he gives you a little bit of shit for still drinking cold brew in January, and you give him a little bit of shit for actually liking pumpkin spice like a wretched millennial, and he invites you to come back to his place after your usual post-Unraveled-shooting boys' night round of drinks with Brian on Wednesday, and you say no, actually, why doesn't he come to your place, there's a place on your block that does a killer white pizza and Charles already loves him. 

(You want the good white pizza, and you like being able to sleep in your own bed. But moreover, you just kind of - want Clayton in your space, a little, to, you don't know, _show_ him or something, that you want him there, that he's got a space in your space, in your zone, in your life. 

You owe him.)

> THIS PART OF YOUR ADVENTURE CONTINUES IN [CHAPTER 45](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21918814/chapters/52318534)!


	43. Chapter 43

The time-travel Unraveled is _fucking_ delightful. You're not sure if this is properly season 3 of the show, considering "season 2" kind of started in May, but it's definitely a deliberate pivot from each video deep-diving specifically into one game to attacking a trope, a concept, from the perspective of multiple games. Brian slides from Prince of Persia to Chrono Trigger with insane wunderkind ease, and he does it all looking _damn_ good in a brand new plum-purple suit that fits his 2020 body to a T. "Did you bill your suit to Vox," you snark, but before you even finish your sentence he's shouting "I got it for Christmas thank you very _much_." Clayton, as usual, laughs at your antics and fully keeps the camera rolling, even when you're not actively on a take. 

You already know you're gonna need another block of shooting, so you don't bother to try to stay late and cram more in today, you just start wrapping up and Brian changes back into his regular-boy clothes while you and Clayton start packing up equipment and you don't stare at Clayton's ass, really, because no offense but he doesn't really have much of an ass to stare at, but like. The sentiment is there, anyway. And so you choke that down and roll your eyes at your own fuckin' fool self, and after you've bundled an acceptable number of cables, you sidle over to Brian in a way that is definitely probably not as casual as you'd like to pretend it is. "Hey, before we head out today," you say, "could we, could I talk to you about something, that I kind of, could use your help with?" There, you think you said that in a way that sounds normal and not like the dreaded anxiety-inducing _can we talk_. You also think you managed to like, not be staring at Clayton the _entire_ time you said it.

Brian, peering out from under the disheveled sweep of his hair, is, as usual, way too fucking smart for his own good, because he's _also_ looking at Clayton. Fuck. He gaze slides back to you. "Yeah, sure, Pat Gill," he chirps, smiling oh-so-innocently. "Here, I can help you load some stuff back into the other studio, and we can chill on the good ol' couch. Hey, Clay-man, you good to get this stuff exported so I can give Pat a hand with some stuff?" Clayton just flashes you guys a sportsmanlike thumbs-up. "Cool deal," Brian says to you, and very conspicuously, but hopefully not _too_ bad, you grab a handful of shit and follow him around to the stream lounge.

"So-oo, young Patrick," he intones sagely, absolutely ridiculous coming from his baby-face, as you settle in on the sofa - you on the right, him on the left, muscle-memory. "Word on the street is that you and the good Mr. Ashley are workin' through a little U-S-T." 

You are _already_ face-in-hands, groaning. "God, is it that fucking obvious?"

"Welp, as the other person you almost hooked up with at that party - "

"_Jesus_!"

" - I feel like I'm a little more attuned to it, maybe," Brian says, his grin just, god, _phenomenally_ shit-eating. "I mean, I don't think everyone in the office knows, or anything. Y'all are being very discreet." Okay, you are actually - genuinely reassured about that. You know Clayton doesn't want this to become the whole office's business, and you feel hinky enough just sharing it with Brian, so like. Cool. "So what exactly is, uh, the problem?"

Yeah, because talking about your feelings and emotions and relationships and shit is something you're _great_ at. You take a steadying breath and sit back up, thread your hand back through your hair real quick. End up flopped back staring at the ceiling, because it's easier than looking at him. "Clayton's _super_ into me," you start, slowly.

"Aww, that's actually real freakin' cute."

"_It is_," you groan, "that's the _problem_. He like. He really seriously wants us to, to be _boyfriends_ or whatever. Partners. Serious exclusive romantic partners."

"And you - don't?" Brian says, a frown in his voice. "Like - ?"

"I don't know if I do or not!" you admit, throwing your hands up a little. "Like, it sounds, um, really nice. But also it's _so_ fast, and my." Hand on face again. "My track record is kind of bullshit. I'm, like, lacking the equipment to deal with this kind of shit effectively. The _emotional_ equipment, Gilbert, I hear your brain making a dong joke."

"Okay, well, you set yourself up for it."

"Please be nice, I'm trying to be raw and vulnerable here and it fucking sucks."

"Okay, okay," he says, and his voice is gentling, and maybe he is going to take pity on you. "You really like him, huh."

"I _really_ do," you whine. You roll your head to the side against the back of the couch, to really look at him. "I'm dying here, man."

"Look, um, here's what I would do, okay?"

"Hit me." 

"I would...think long and hard about the kind of energy I want a relationship to have," he says. "And if that would be what I'd have with him. Even if I wasn't sure how long it would last, or if I was always gonna make the right moves, or whatever. But there's obviously something there that I really like, right, and so - and so then maybe it turns out that it is. The energy I want. If it's gonna make me happier, if it's gonna be smoother sailing with him than without him."

_Smoother sailing_ \- you imagine it, so vividly, metaphorically and literally, just you and Clayton and the thrum of the energy Brian's talking about, like you're just peacefully adrift together in the most comfortable little boat ever. _Gosh_ you like him. "Fuck, Brian," you say, "that's romantic as hell."

"Creative writing major."

"Hell yeah." 

He matches your pose on the sofa, his face leaned down along the back. You could honestly be lying horizontal like this, on the floor, or on a bed somewhere. Slumber party gossip style. "And so then I'd also think like...he obviously sees something that he wants in _me_, or he wouldn't be so serious about it," Brian says, softly. "And if he cares that much about me, then maybe, if there's a single part of me that also cares about him that much, then I should just. Go for it." He smiles, a little wanly. "We're all adults here, it's 2020. If we break up later, we break up, or we just drift in different directions, or things just, I dunno, mean a little less, after a while. But between then and now maybe something amazing happens. And that's worth it." 

"Christ, dude," you murmur. That's - heavy, but it's exactly the kind of heavy that the things Clayton's already thrown at you also are, and it settles into your shoulders, the cavity of your chest, in a way that's way more profound than you were expecting. He's really struck a chord with some of your spiraling anxieties in just like, an eerily astute way. Like he's - speaking from experience. Face-to-face with Brian here on the streaming couch, his expression gone just a little wistful, just a little sly, you are suddenly hyper-aware of the entire monologue he just delivered in _first person_.

"If I didn't know better," you joke, not really joking, "I'd say you were just as into Clayton as I am."

"Mmm, well, you said it, not me," he says, and he winks, his sloppy Brian-wink, but holy shit - _holy shit_, he isn't really joking, either. You think you're simpatico enough, you think you've spent enough hours with him on _this very couch_, to know that much.

You sit up straight. "Wait, Brian."

"Look, Pat, I just - "

"Are you serious?"

He sighs. "I mean, kind of! Fuck, I didn't mean - I didn't want you to react like - "

"Like how?"

"Like all freaked out and stuff!" he says. "Like, obviously you're super monogamous, and you and Clayton are so cute and you like each other so much, so I'm just gonna stay out of it, I'm sorry for like, going all Cyrano on your ass, I'm - "

You do something outrageously stupid, and lean over and kiss Brian on the mouth to shut him up. 

God, it's _good_, is the thing. Maybe it's the hours and hours of energy that the two of you have dumped into this sofa, and now it just radiates Pat And Brian Vibes, and maybe it's the super soft way he just dropped a whole speech about healthy relationships while staring intently at you. And maybe it's just because he put the elephant in the room on blast by bringing up the way that yes, you did take a minute at the party thinking about his arm wrapped around you during karaoke, and his insistence that you sing with him, that he get a chance to sing _at_ you, before you drifted out to Clayton on his fire escape instead. But maybe it's because - you've thought a lot, this past week, about how you and Clayton are the same, peas-in-a-pod, running on the same frequencies, and finding a niche that works for both of you, and how maybe, long-term, that might just get...harder. Water and water, like and like; not even a balance to upset, because everything's on one side of the fulcrum. (Fulcrum? How are you thinking words like _fulcrum_ when, after weeks of agonizing about Clayton, you are suddenly _kissing Brian_?)

Brian, who could be the oil to your water. Brian, who could provide a fun, bright release valve for the sweet, heavy vibes that you and Clayton share. Brian, who is _absolutely_ kissing you back, despite just tacitly admitting that he's into Clayton, who has a hand in your hair and is humming sweet pleased little noises into your mouth and hoollly shit, it cannot possibly be that fucking easy.

Can it?

You break apart from him, your brain still kind of whirling on hyperspeed about the whole thing, and in your internet-poisoned idiocy all you manage to say is, "T...two of them."

He buries his snort of laughter into your collarbone. "Now he's gettin' it." 

"Brian, this is some buckwild shit to drop on me after you just kind of admitted on camera that you would fool around with your alt-timeline time-travel self."

"Well wouldn't _you_?"

(You...would, probably.) 

"Jesus christ, okay," you finally say, because _jesus christ._ "Look I've already spent like two weeks losing my mind about this Clayton thing and this is just even _more_ to think about, you have to know that."

"Oh, for sure," he says, and it's so casual that it drives you _mad_. "Take all the time you need."

"Fuck me, that's what _he_ said," you groan. "Seriously, one of us is gonna have to pick the ball up somehow at some point."

"I am not gonna make you make the first move when you're still kind of having a crisis about liking two boys at the same time," Brian says, and he's laughing at you but it's not malicious in the slightest.

"Well, okay, thank you, for that." 

"Take a couple days and if you're still feeling the energy just shoot me a text and let ol' Brian David Gilbert do the talking," he says. He presses another little kiss to your cheek and you feel it ripple all the way down to your toes. "Meanwhile can we get out of here? I think this sofa is cursed."

"God yes," you agree.

You, Brian and Clayton all leave the office at your own speeds, on your own time, separately. You wonder if Clayton can feel the vibe shift as pronouncedly as you can, the way you look from him, to Brian, and Brian looks from you, to him, and the way your heart is beating just a hot little double-time flutter. Brian is bright and bustling, and Clayton is cool and constant, and like.

Maybe you do have feelings for both of them.

Stranger _fuckin'_ things happen all the time, surely. 

You kick the concept around all weekend, and it's like your previous Clayton-only agonizing, but...it isn't, somehow, also. This one feels more like a puzzle you're trying to put together, something that you can work out to a satisfying end if you can just get all the pieces in order and slot them into the right spots. Before, you don't even think you _had_ all the pieces. You do some mildly embarrassing Google searches about, like, _polyamory_ and _triads_ and some shit, fuck, you do it in an incognito window, okay, you are _not_ in this deep end with both feet yet. But it feels. You dunno, _nice_. Good, and simultaneously complicated as hell and so, so simple. Like it's the right fucking answer. Like suddenly you never wanna see another goddamn love triangle end in a forced decision as long as you live, because gang? Folks? _This_ is an option, turns out. 

Sunday morning first thing when you wake up you find and send Brian the gif from Road to El Dorado that just says _both? both is good._ It's a hot minute before he answers, you shuffle out of bed and wave to Quinn on his way out the door to his morning shift and dump some food in Charlie's bowl, but then - 

_>LOL PAT GILL!!  
>oh my god are we doing this thang?_

_>Look I have no fucking clue what is going on here in my dang head or my dang feels zone_

_>that's your heart, pat, you can just say your heart_

_>but I dunno I think I really wanna do this  
>Fuck off I ain't got no heart I'm hardcore_

_>sure, big man  
>OKYDOKE WELL obviously if clayton isn't on board then this ship don't sail  
>but I think we can make a convincing argument  
>like, throw me some data points here_

You think it over while scarfing down a few more spoonfuls of soggy Honey Nut Cheerios, and try to put your ruminations on The Vibes into coherent sentences.

_>Okay so like  
>Me and Clayton are really similar  
>But you're not_

...Yeah that's real fuckin' articulate.

_>uh  
>go on..._

_>lol Fuck okay like  
>I think you're the missing piece of the thing, is all  
>It's like an isosoles triangle (however you fuckin spell it)  
>You're the short one :P_

_>okay I was gonna compliment your trigonometry metaphor but that's just rude_

_>I have a point, I promise  
>I'm bad at this_

_>no no no you're fine_

_>But like I think just me and Clayton together is too much  
>And just you+me or you+him isn't enough  
>And I think him and me can be real boyfriends or whatever the fuck  
>(I am 32 when do we stop using the word boyfriend. Is there a single god damn good word for this)_

_>there isnt_

_>But it'll be such a relief to have you there for when I start freaking out_  
_>Or he starts freaking out. I guess. I don't know his shit I guess_  
_>Fuck, we really are basing all of this on him saying yes_

_>he's gonna say yes. :wink:_

And Brian sounds so sure of himself, that you dare to get just, like, a little optimistic. 

When you see them both at the office Monday morning, you are legitimately shocked that it just kind of makes you feel..._good_. Like, you've got some nerves about the whole thing, sure, but your solution to the "problem" or whatever the fuck feels so watertight and decent that you're weirdly chill and zen about the whole thing. Brian's flirty and smily, and Clayton...look, you're still just _really_ into him, is the thing. He still smiles so kindly at you every time your eyes meet, he's been so _patient_ with you, and honestly one of the things you're most nervous about in this whole endeavor is how you're about to throw just, like, the biggest clusterfuck right into his lap.

Brian hovers near your work station where you are, supposedly, clipping the last of this Squaresoft footage and then moving on to some Blizzard shit. "When's a good time, you think?"

"He was, uh." You clear your throat, make sure your voice stays quiet. "He was very clear about this not becoming a big office thing, so we should - oh! We should take him to lunch."

"Patrick, that's fucking adorable."

"I'm not cute, I'm manly as hell," you quote, and he laughs and ruffles your hair before bounding away again. 

Brian makes a point of asking both of you out for tacos separately, under the guise of talking about some Unraveled shit. You stride out into the cold together, earning only what you'd consider a level-two eyebrow from Simone as you go, and when you've both been situated with carnitas and guacamole and whatever sweet potato thing Brian's eating, Brian eases gracefully but abruptly into the pitch. How he - wants to help. How he knows Clayton's super into you, and that you want to be able to take that step with him. (You _do_, you chime in helpfully.) How Brian is super into _both_ of you, and would happily be the grease that lubricates this squeaky wheel. (He makes a lube joke, which you think is maybe in poor taste, though not really off the mark.) How he's not sure where Clayton stands on like, a triad relationship - how you literally only just came around to it over the weekend, but you're super game for it, it turns out - how maybe the two of you are totally off the mark, here, but he was just - hoping - 

And Clayton takes first Brian's hand, and then yours, along the surface of the shitty taco-shack formica table. And he leans over and presses a kiss to your lips, chaste and just - _thankful_, and then reaches across to stroke Brian's hair, the side of his face.

"You sweet boys," he says, smiling, pink-cheeked and like, _giddy_ with it. "This is like - Christmas round two, holy shit."

Brian legitimately does a fist-pump in victory, Skull-style. "Oh _fuck_ yeah! Clayton!" he cries.

"Patrick?" Clayton asks you, and you just - very blatantly show him how _huge_ your grin is, and say, "_Yeah_, dude."

Yeah, dude.

\-------

You didn't bank on how easily they'd be able to just _take you the fuck apart_ when there's _two_ of them. 

Like, most of your - god, you hate to say _triad_ almost as much as you hate to say _boyfriend_, but most of your _triad negotiations_ were purely on the emotional, what-are-we sort of level, figuring out how you fit into each other's lives, what to do about it at work, what to do about it on the internet. You were really not thinking until, somehow, the _moment it was happening_ what this was going to mean for you in the bedroom. You have one night's worth of experience with Clayton, and zero nights' worth of experience with Brian, and so you're absolutely not prepared for - 

For Clayton, three computers down, shooting you and Brian a private Slack message one afternoon reminding you, demure but pointed, that he's the only one of you who doesn't have a roommate to worry about - 

For Brian saying "Am I seriously the only one of us who's had a threesome before?" and you and Clayton just shaking your heads because fucking _yes, Brian_, you are the only one, what the fuck -

For sitting up in Clayton's bed with the goddamn lights on, with Clayton against the headboard and you against Clayton, his soft sleep shirt still on, smooth against your back. His hard cock, also against your back, pressing damp and insistent into the space right where your ass splits, and he's not really _grinding_, just moving naturally with the pace of the three of you together in a way that shifts it there, sometimes, just - _reminding_ you. Making sure you don't forget about it, amid all the other distractions, like the way Clayton's left arm is wrapped around your chest to hold you steady, solid, and his right hand is resting at the base of your cock to feed it into Brian's warm, wet mouth.

"Careful, now," Clayton hums in your ear, as he sweeps kisses there, and up the back of your neck, fuck how does he always find the back of your neck so easily, to just ruin you in _seconds_. "Keep still, don't choke him."

"Mmm, I can take it, daddy," Brian coos, and fuck where did _that_ come from, is it gonna be like this all _night_, just both of them casually dropping every bomb like it's all part of their plan to have you like this, strung out and panting and unable to zero in on anything to ground yourself, just adrift on both of them, the skinny solid plane of Clayton's chest and the way Brian's hands are raking up and down your naked thighs, digging his fingers in, really getting at you till you twitch against both of them, shaking, you're fucking _shaking_. Brian slides his mouth up off you to lick down along the side of your shaft, sucking and kissing at Clayton's fingers, too, where they're still wrapped around.

"Mmm, Brian, that's _good_," Clayton says, and his hips hitch a little into your back, and you roll back into him, too, feeling his thick cock, feeling the pulse in his thighs alongside your own. His mouth against your neck gets firmer, hungrier, and you know there's gonna be a mark there. You think, you _hope_ your hair is grown out long enough to cover it up. 

"Clayton," you gasp, "what should I - let me - I wanna touch you." You reach your arm back to hold his face tighter to your neck, and he moans out a little sound against your skin, and you let your other hand drift to Brian's soft wild mess of hair, as he takes you down his throat again, not pushing, just holding, stroking. You brace yourself on these two incredible humans that you've somehow managed to build this incredible thing with and just _soar_, chasing your orgasm in Brian's mouth, leaning into the press of Clayton at your back. God, there's no relief _anywhere_, you're fucking surrounded by them. The whole space smells like Clayton and sex and you just look down and Brian's staring _right at you_ and you can't, you can't, you can't _not_ come, you bite out the most perfunctory little "_Bri--_" as warning and then lose yourself, and he just takes it, bright-eyed and impish and so _good_, and then he crawls up the bed, over your limp and starstruck body, and presses a wet, white kiss into Clayton's mouth over your shoulder and passes - _fuck_ they are _sharing you_, like this, and you feel like - 

Well, you figure they're always just. Sharing you, a little bit. 

You spiral back down into yourself as your orgasm ebbs, and when you think you're finally with the program enough, you sneak Brian a little wink, where he's sitting back on his heels, now, still wearing his sweet heather-blue boxer briefs but just _deliciously_ hard inside. He smiles at you, and jukes to your left, so you slither out of Clayton's grasp and slide right, till you're bracketing him on either side and he cottons on, and groans oh _oh, jeez_.

"Your turn, babe," you whisper in his ear, and Brian sets his mouth to Clayton's neck, and you set yours to the highest bit of his chest, just under his collarbone, and he cups his big, cool hands around the backs of both of your skulls and - pulls your hair - and you whine out just an _embarrassingly_ slutty-sounding "Oh, _fuck_ me" right in time with Brian yelping "Hey, watch it!" 

And you - have to laugh, at that one, as you both dive in to kiss Clayton's smiling mouth at the same time.

> **WOWWEE!!** Looks like your efforts to woo CLAYTON netted you even more than you bargained for. (Gee, Patrick, how come your mom lets you have _two_ boyfriends?) Now would be a great time to return to chapter 1 and start a new game! Or, if you like, click back a couple of steps and try making a different set of choices. :) Thanks for playing GILL OR BE GILLED!


	44. Chapter 44

Your gaze shoots around the bullpen to your coworkers - Simone, who's got a headset on and is laughing, probably what she thinks is "quietly" - Brian whom you can barely see because he's hunkered down so close to his monitor, fingers clacking vigorously on his keyboard, he's either actively playing something or got a jolt of script inspiration and there are even more Unraveled reshoots in your future - _Clayton_. Smiling faintly at whatever he's working on, sort of checked out from the rest of the room, looking so _calm_, peaceful and chill and unperturbed, unbothered.

The last thing you want to do is be the person who bothers him.

You cannot tell Brian or Simone. You've done such a good job at not making this the entire office's business so far - starting _now_, when you're fully neck-deep in your dumb relationship crisis, seems like the genuine worst move you could make. You take a little lap around the bullpen to clear your head, and land back at your desk with a tea you stole from the fridge and a new resolve to get your shit together. This is _your_ responsibility to figure out, dumbass. You're a goddamn adult and you can do this. 

(You pass Clayton, on your little walkabout, and your head hurts and your throat lumps up with dread, but you choke it back the fuck down and get back to work.)

You're so _confused_, is the worst part. You still don't really understand why the two plus two of _you like Clayton a lot_ and _Clayton likes you, **a lot**_ is not adding up to fucking four. But you think it's exactly because you like him so much that you are so dead-set on not doing anything that could mess this up any further. You already feel enough like an ass for making him wait; the only way you're gonna be able to make it up to him is by sticking the goddamn landing _perfectly_ when you're finally ready to nut up and be with him.

Because that's the endgame here, you _are_ gonna get there.

Aren't you?

So you don't talk to Brian or Simone. You don't talk to anybody about it, honestly, not least of all because it's fucking embarrassing and hard to have to admit to anyone, up to and including your own dumbass self, that this is doing such a number on you. You don't even tell your _therapist_, even though that's entirely the fucking point of the thing, you realize. Maybe you'll work your way up to it next month. Oh holy christ, you better not still be tearing yourself to pieces about this by this time next month. 

Meanwhile, work is just incredibly normal. You get Unraveled shoots in the can, Monday night (there's a mortifying moment where you realize your camera hasn't been recording for like, over half an hour, and the calm way Clayton talks Brian down from his panic and instructs you into a creative solution is cool and professional and somehow simultaneously both reassuring and even more mortifying) and then Wednesday night, after which you go out for drinks as has become kind of a mini tradition. You get a happy hour bourbon and Brian drinks a laughably out-of-character straight guy beer and Clayton just, like, exists in your space, and neither one of you lets on at all that there's anything going on, and it feels like. So dope and adult. You're figuring this out on your own time and you're not letting it become something big and messy in the middle. Nice, nice. You don't even stare at Clayton when Brian forces him to try his bad beer and he gets foam caught adorably on his mustache, and you definitely don't think about kissing it off, and it definitely doesn't send you into a panic spiral that culminates in you crying-not-crying little sniffles into Charlie's soft stomach, later, because maybe it turns out you had two bourbons and also maybe it turns out this isn't very dope and adult, after all.

You just like him _so much_ that the idea of fucking this up has slowly grown to become the most terrifying thing in the world. Any move you make now feels like the wrong move. So you just make...no move. Which is, unfortunately, probably also the wrong move.

You keep working with him every day, sallying the fuck forth, and no one suspects a thing. The Overboard shoot is fine 'n' dandy, even when Jeff throws a marble at your head. Zombie-Gon hits the merch store and you mostly don't hate it, though you still don't think you really got Brian's chin right, even if half of it is like, rotting off. Your new piece about hard magic systems as a storytelling device feels a lot better - even when you get burnt out on the names of a bunch of these Japanese story-writers and end up saying _Fuck-amori_ on one take. Clayton just laughs at you and says "Aaannd we're saving that one for the end screen." 

He winks, and it's cute as hell, but it's like. Weightless, neutral, friendly. Not a big deal. (You're so alike, you think again; you're not saying anything, and he's not saying anything.) You stash this brief sweet moment in your heart with the rest of them, and rewrite the goddamn mental calculus equation this has turned into just one more little time, hoping that maybe this time it'll produce a solution.

But it doesn't.

> **BUT WITH A WHIMPER...!!** Your adventure with CLAYTON has come to an anticlimactic end. If you'd like, you can start a new game by returning to chapter 1, or you can always backtrack a step or two and make some different choices. Better luck next time on GILL OR BE GILLED!


	45. Chapter 45

You're not usually a "knock someone up into the inside of the door as soon as you make it back to the apartment" kind of dude, but dear god man you feel like you've been building up to this for so, so much longer than it's actually been, and also you're finding you're just _really_ enjoying it from the other side of the equation. Clayton's like, negligibly taller than you, an absolutely compatible height for him to slot his thigh up between yours and pin your hips with his hips, one arm braced against the door alongside your head and the other gripping up around your upper arm as he kisses deep, deep into your mouth, and you're already panting, gasping for air. His face is still cold and stung pink from the walk up from the subway. Fuck, y'all still have your _coats on_.

"Mmm, Pat, I've been just, really looking forward to this," he hums against your cheek, in the moment or two that you take to breathe before he slides back in. 

"Yeah, no fucking kidding," you manage. Your arms, thrown long over his shoulders, tug him closer, keep his face snug to yours. "Mmm, y'know what, I bet if I - " you duck down a little further - "bet if I, mm, leave a mark up under here, nobody'll ever see. With the beard and all." 

"Oh, god, fuckin' go for it," he says, "that sounds - " You don't learn how it sounds, because you do just fuckin' go for it, and Clayton's speech evaporates into a soft, wordless sigh. His skin tastes salty-sweet under your teeth, and he's not exactly vocal but he's still _very_ responsive, his hand clenching up at your bicep, his hips knocking and rolling forward. Oh god, he feels _good_. 

"Okay, woof, okay, we gotta," he says. "We gotta - we cannot keep having our coats and our shoes on, honestly we should probably have as little on as possible - "

"I'm incredibly on board with this," you say, although you make literally no move to do anything other than keep sucking on his neck. 

His hand steals down inside the open front of your coat and swats _hard_ at the uppermost curve of your thigh, and _oof_, wow, okay, your breath hitches in your chest a little and you feel your blood surge a couple different places and okay okay you're getting the picture. "Coats off," you confirm, and with so much effort it's almost embarrassing you crack apart from him and shrug your coat off and bend down to start dealing with your boots, and he's kicking out of his sneakers, tosses his shit down on top of yours, grabs at your shirt literally the instant you're both done, tugs your mouth back up to his. 

"You taste really good," he says, and your head is spinning a little, the vertigo of standing up so fast and the absolutely _ridiculous_ way he managed to make those four words sound so kind and sweet and also raunchy as fuck, and you wrap his face up in your hands and kiss him harder, _harder_, trying to remember all your tricks you picked up on his fire escape, the way he likes to push, the way he likes for you to pull back. You stumble, haltingly, kissingly, to your room. You nudge Charles off the bed so Clayton can push you down onto it.

"I really wanna undress you," he whispers, hovering just a couple feet above you, and you whisper back, "Okay." He runs his long, nimble hands so cleanly down the row of your shirt buttons, your foreheads pressed together as you both watch him work, his breath stuttery against your chin the only thing betraying how flustered and turned on he is, his fingers never faltering. When he's at the bottom he _slides_ back up, strokes along your chest till he can get to your shoulders and shove the shirt off by the sleeves. You jerk it the rest of the way free off your wrists and whip it toward your hamper. You absolutely do not give a shit if you make it in. 

Then he's thumbing at your waistband, at the button of your fly, and you nod him along, you definitely have not changed your fucking mind here. He pops the button and rolls the zipper down and your cock, well on its way to hard under there, thickens up more at his proximity, swells into his hands. He kisses you, for that one, and keeps going, groping up under your thighs so you'll sit up enough that he can work your jeans down. It's - this is categorically erotic, somehow, just letting him peel your clothes off slow and steady while he stands there fully dressed. Just when you think you've got a handle on him he's fuckin' full of surprises. 

To take your pants the rest of the way off he slides down, down, onto his knees on the floor at your feet, tugging them off one leg at a time and taking your socks with them. You're sitting on the edge of your bed in just your underwear and Clayton is on the floor in front of you and you are just, a dude with a cock about it, okay, your brain goes all of one direction before promptly shorting out - 

"Please?" you ask, open-mouthed and just _staring_, feeling absolutely zero need to elaborate.

He smiles up at you, that smile where his eyes seem to be seeing past you, through you, his expression a little slack and distant but undeniable. "Yeah," he says, "sure." He presses a bristling kiss to your stomach right above the band of your briefs, and then sort of _pushes_, his hand cool and flat along your ribs. You follow his lead, lie back, spread your legs for him, and he nudges up a little further to rest his forearms on the edge of the mattress and kiss your stomach again, and again, and then your thighs. Jesus you're already thinking about beard burn on your thighs and your brain is _whiting out_, and he's not even on your dick yet.

"Hoo, boy, Clayton, _please_," you say again, staring goggle-eyed up at the ceiling, and he does some stupid sexy thing where he tugs your elastic waistband down with his teeth, what the _fuck_. "Oh god, you're gonna kill me."

"Now why would I do that?" he asks, voice slow and gentle and absolutely devastating, as his hands slip up your thighs to help work your underwear down, just like he did with your pants. "I _like_ you." He tugs them out from under your ass and slides it away, and then you're naked, and he still has a _cardigan on_, you're gonna die, you can feel him grinning so serenely against the tenderest part of your inner thigh and then he kisses you, there, slow and lush, right in sync with his fingertips caressing their way over the head of your cock.

"Oh jesus christ," you swear, and you slap your hand up over your own face, because _jesus christ_, those dexterous fucking hands just rolling through the precome that's beading at the head of your dick already feel like the most crazy-good thing that's ever happened to you. Maybe you're just too keyed-up, having taken so long to get here, and maybe it's the two (2) happy hour bourbons you had out with Brian, but you're pretty sure it's just - Clayton, stupid beautiful Clayton, with some kind of cheat code on how to make you lose your whole entire mind with just the absolute minimum of contact or movement. Fuckin' Pat Orgasm Speed Run. You can already feel your hips hitching up off the bed. He presses, just, _painfully_ gently down on your left hipbone with his right hand, keeping you still. His mouth slides higher, higher up your thigh, to the crease where it cuts into your pelvis. Your nerve endings are sparking alive with the brush of his beard already. 

Before he gets to your cock, he sits back up, moves away - you sit up, too, propping clumsily up onto your elbows against the soft bed, trying to see what he's up to. From his place beside the bed, Clayton looks straight up into your eyes and never breaks contact as he slowly, deliberately rolls up the sleeves to his sweater and his shirt underneath, till they're hugging his forearms just under the elbow. Holy _shit_, Clayton. Then he curls one hand around the bottom half of your dick, leans forward, and sucks the head and just beyond into his mouth, his eyes drifting shut as he takes you in. 

"Go-_oddd_." You collapse flat onto your back again, just long enough to land before you're _bowing_ up off the mattress from the heat and the softness and the surety of his steady-paced mouth. You, look, listen, you had sex probably a low-single-digits number of times in the entire year of 2019, it has been a _fucking_ grip, and you for _sure_ cannot remember the last time someone was devoting this much focused, _dense_ attention specifically to you. And also pretty soon you are not gonna be able to remember much of anything, on account of Clayton is _blowing your brains out_, holy shit, his mouth nudging further down to meet where his hand wraps around, bobbing and pulsing you into the roof of his mouth, nosing down further, wet, hungry, determined. He sits up a little higher so he can really go _down_ on you, bracing his other forearm on the mattress again, his thumb and forefinger looped around the base of your cock and the rest of his fingers splayed across your abdomen to hold you still, and you feel _surrounded_ by him, trapped and taken apart, your right arm flopped loose and out of the way up around your head, your left hand - coming to rest on top of his, over your stomach, stroking your fingers against his own. Oh, he likes that - he hums a low, sweet sound around his mouthful of your cock - the vibrations fucking _thrill_ through you, and your hand tightens against his, your mouth drops open on a messy moan. 

Your legs, your thighs are fucking _trembling_ with it, and you hook one leg back around his back, feel the soft weave of his sweater against your heel where it digs in. He takes your nudging and rolls with it; he slips his hand off your cock, slides both cool hands around over your hipbones and down, back, under your ass, to tip your hips up and a little back and point your cock into his mouth at a new angle, where he can really - yes, _fuck_ here we _go_, swallow you all the way down till his nose is pressed to your groin and his beard, if you tighten your legs around his face a little which of _course_ you do because it shocks through you like electricity, involuntary and a little violent, his beard scrapes and tickles against your thighs with every bob of his head, catching in the inside corners of the dip where your thighs curve back into your asscheeks. God, yes, _god_, you have never been so overjoyed to be taken so the fuck apart. 

"Clayton," you pant out, small and breathless and thready, "Clayton, please, fuck, it's so _good_." He strokes his thumbs into the back of your thighs and works his throat around the head of your cock, and you struggle back up to your elbows, to watch, to _see_, his own eyes drooping shut-and-then-open-again as he sinks over you, his lush rhythm never faltering. When he sees you looking his lips stretched around you curve, just a little, smiling and doubling down with his tongue, ohhhh fuck, and he gives just the smallest little nod _yes, yeah, sure_. So now you're like, definitely gonna come in his mouth. 

He sweeps his thumbs further in, one of them catching around the crack of your ass, and your hand flies down to cup his cheek and you can feel your cock working inside and his beard still scratching at you everywhere and your thighs tighten, the whole core of you _tightens_, and your shoulders grind into the mattress as you curve up and _cry_ out, some expletives or his name or some wordless garbage, you don't know, you just feel it shock out of you bright and high and loud, god, way too loud, as you spill into Clayton's throat, his hands actually working and pushing at your ass, at your hips, bringing you up to _meet his mouth_ on the quakes of your orgasm, good _god_ man, you have probably never gotten head this devastating in your _life_. He slides back to about like, just a third of the way down, sucks you through the aftershocks, and then nestles your ass back onto the mattress, where your thighs finally droop back apart and your whole body just _sags_ because like, what the fuck else are you supposed to do, when that happens. 

"Dear sweet fucking god, Clayton Ashley," you blurt out. You're like a starfish in your own bed, and your chest is still heaving, your legs still shaking a little. "Where the hell did you learn to do _that_." 

"I dunno, practice, I guess," he says, very humbly, which is bullshit because he _has_ to know how amazing that was. Sounds like he swallowed, too, which, fuck, you're bummed to have missed _that_. 

"Can you please get up here so I can kiss you," you demand, maybe a little petulant - and then, "wait, unless that's weird to you, unless you need to like, rinse out first - "

"No way, man, not weird to me if it's not weird to you, it's, uh, it's your dick."

"Shit, yeah it is," you crow. He crawls up the bed next to you, parallel, adjacent, and you twist onto your side so you can kiss into his mouth. Yeah, defo tastes a little bit like jizz. Oh well. He's just _such_ a good kisser, and you need to tell him with kisses, right the fuck now, how good that was. God, god, he's still wearing all his _clothes_. You break the kiss off and nuzzle your head into the crook of his neck, up, along his jaw.

"Jesus, you're still," you say, "like, god, okay, let me know what, can I just - what can I do for _you_, what do you want? How can I ever _fucking_ repay?" 

"Oh, god, just, whatever you want, baby," he says, kissing you again. The pet name - because it definitely didn't feel like a joke, not an around-the-office _awh yeah baybee_ but a real, tender thing - thrills up your spine in an unexpectedly excellent little way, and you kiss into his mouth harder, but - no, Pat, stop fucking getting distracted.

"No, c'mon, don't - what do _you_ want, Clayton. I'm seriously down for whatever. As long as you take your clothes off, please, jesus."

He laughs against your jaw. "Okay, okay, sure. I'm gonna strip and then, uh, jerk me off?"

"Hell yeah, man." 

You both sit back up - you're finally regaining, like, the normal use of all your limbs - and peel him out of his clothes, till he's just as naked as you are and you're both nestled comfortably up against the headboard, legs intertwined at a gangly (god you are both just a lotta leg, huh) but comfortable angle. Clayton gets your tongue back in his mouth, kissing hot and slow and wet, and he takes your hand and guides it to his cock, positions it how he wants it and wraps his own hand around the back of it, guiding you, showing you what he likes. You take, just, _copious_ fucking mental notes, letting him twist and spread you around as he dribbles against your fingers, showing you how to work his foreskin around, keeping his other hand curled snug around your neck so your mouths stay firm together, your other hand stroking aimless and heavy around and across the inside of his thigh. He's quiet, when he comes, just his breath hitching sharp and dramatic in his chest, in your mouth, and his fingers tightening _hard_ against your neck and your hand in his around his dick, taking fuller control of the jerk and pull of it as he crests, _using_ your hand to get himself off at the end there, wrenching your wrist taut. It's almost - elegant, except it's also just a little bit nasty, and this is slowly becoming your favorite thing about who Clayton is as a person, and as a person who you're - dating, fucking, whatever. No one without the other, with him, you think, not now. You're very, very into it.

"You're so gorgeous," you tell him, your kisses trailing smaller and lighter to the corner of his mouth. His cheeks light up pink, and he strokes sweetly at your neck. Oh, fuck, people definitely don't tell him that enough. "I'm serious," you add, squeezing at the meat of his thigh. "You're fucking blowing my mind, man, you're incredible."

"Flattery will get you everywhere," he purrs, faux-lofty, kissing around to your jaw, too. "Except for like, if you think you're getting me to get up and get stuff to clean up, or whatever, because my man this is _your_ house." 

"Fuck, that's fair," you give him. You untangle your hand from his, doing your best to wipe most of his come back onto his hand ("Wow, so kind, thank you,") and then you untangle your legs from his, too, and maneuver your way to the bathroom, grateful that Quinn seems to still be out of the house. 

When you get back, with a couple clean washcloths and a glass of water to share, Clayton's scratching up under Charlie's chin with his clean hand, and you think, Fuck, you could really get used to this.

> **PERFECT!!** ♥♥♥ You really worked it out with CLAYTON in the most delicious way! If your cat really likes your boyfriend, that's how you know he's a keeper ;) Now, if you like, you can start a new game over at chapter 1, or if you really feel like it, skip back a step or two and make some different decisions instead! Thanks for playing GILL OR BE GILLED!


	46. Chapter 46

"I think...I... could also really get into it," you find yourself saying. The bottom is maybe dropping out of your stomach right now, kind of, but. But it's not entirely different from the way you felt even starting a serious thing with Clayton in the first place. You're making all kinds of leaps-of-faith here, so what's one more - especially when that one more just sounds _incredibly horny and good_, okay, and like, Clayton knowing way more about it than you do and kind of giving you the walkthrough seriously just sounds like - one more part of the shit. In for a penny, in for a pound, baybee. 

Heh. Pound. 

"Wait, really?" says Clayton. His hand jerks against yours on the tabletop, and he sounds genuinely surprised that you said yes. Oh, you wonder if maybe people don't usually say yes, and that feels _so_ shitty. Okay, now you _definitely_ have to do it, he fuckin' deserves it. 

You let your grin spread back across your face. "Hell yeah, man. Lemme at them Fifty Shades of Clay." 

His face _drops_ into both his hands, his laughter sweet and embarrassed and also like, joke-mad, gets you curling your tongue to the corner of your mouth as he mumbles "oh my god, you asshole." You slide further around to his side of the table and peel his hand from his face so you can press a kiss into his palm, and he hums out a little sigh, when he catches his breath, and turns his head to kiss you full-on, instead. He wraps one arm low and tight around your waist and you rest your hands gently on his shoulders and just let yourself get kissed. Shit feels _real_ good. 

"Okay," he murmurs, "well, I was already gonna invite you back to my place after this, but now I'm _definitely_ going to invite you back to my place after this."

"Sounds like a plan," you murmur back, and then you kiss him again, and you're still kissing him when Brian gets back.

"All right, all right, break it up, you two," he drawls out, waving both green-glitter hands at you like _shoo_. "It's a public space, we don't need to see it."

"You hate to see it," you chirp back, provoking Brian's classic unimpressed face, but you cut him a break and slide loose from Clayton, back to your third of the table, back to nursing your second bourbon and letting Clayton prompt you into talking a little more about how your Twitch streams are going now that you're back on the wagon, letting Brian digress off that into Gill and Gilbert reminiscing with a gleam of a project in his eye, (oh, _oh_, you file that away for later,) and letting this happy hour stretch out to more like an hour forty-five, till the conversation runs ashore and you're tired of this dumb bar where you can't sit down and you really kind of, just. Want to go back to Clayton's.

"We good?" you toss him, vague but not unclear. You let him make the call for both of you; you think that's probably part of the thing, right. He smiles a _very_ loaded li'l smile just for you, and nods.

"Yeah, I think it's time to head out," he says. "Sorry, Bri," he adds, but Brian actually isn't quite paying attention, buried in his phone.

"Oh, no, uh, actually I'm. I'm gonna head out too. Good timing." You're tall enough that you can kind of crane over, to try to figure out who he's texting - tall enough, but not subtle enough. "Heyyy, mind your own beeswax, Patrick."

"Geez, touchy," you say, but you throw your hands up in surrender. 

He's already back to only paying you half-attention, smirks just a little, taps his last couple words out real hard and then slips his phone away. "Okay," he says, "let's settle up and roll out."

You settle up and roll out, get your coats on and wave goodbye as you break apart to different subway stations. Clayton keeps his arm tight around your waist as you walk, and it's warm and heavy in the January chill, steadying and exciting all at once. You get a seat on the train, but just one, so you defer to him and his ankles and you stand in front, close, not enough to be really truly standing between his spread knees here on the god danged subway but it's. It's close, is the thing. You're becoming increasingly glad that the route to his place is only a few stops. The itch of anticipation is creeping up your veins, lumping up in your throat, as you look over-and-down at him and his cool, easy smile. 

"We should have a safeword," he says, extremely nonchalantly, so much so that you nearly trip up the steps as you're climbing out of the subway toward his building. 

"Jesus christ," you hiss, catching yourself.

"That's probably a bad one."

"Ohh my god, you are killing me," you laugh out. "Um, I don't know, Waluigi."

"You're joking, but that's not bad."

"I'm not entirely joking." You aren't. It'd kill the mood, that's for sure, which you guess is kind of part of the point? It definitely is not anything like anything else you'd ever fucking say when you're anywhere near Clayton's dick.

"Wwwelp. Works for me."

And soon enough - you're here. Things feel like, eerily normal, for all the talk and revelations and shit you've thrown around this evening. He doesn't shove you through the front door and get you on your knees before you even take your coat off. He doesn't immediately start whispering nasty, horny shit in your ear, though honestly you probably wouldn't have minded that one. He just kisses you once, soft, lush, slow, and then very carefully and deliberately takes your coat for you, and hangs it up alongside his on a couple of hooks on the back of the door, and shuffles into his kitchen, offers to get you some water. You say yes, please, and now, now that you know, now that you're paying attention to the _thing_, you watch his face as you do it, and you see it in there. Still not sure what _it_ really is, but you know you see it. You tug off your shoes, unzip your hoodie all the way and let it hang open around your torso in its faded tee, and sit on his sofa, to wait for him. 

He comes back with water for both of you and immediately kisses you again, as soon as he's set them down, standing over you in a way that makes you feel, in just a _tiny_ little fraction of a feeling...small. Smaller, than him, anyway. You're effectively the same size as Clayton, all things considered - you're maybe slightly broader but only just, he's maybe slightly taller but with your big boots on it's negligible - but right now, your monkey brain says, he coulda fooled the hell out of you. You can tell he's already had a sip or two of his water because his mouth is cool, tender against your own, and his hands cup around both sides of your face, his thumb stroking a little in the grain of where your beard is growing in - you know it's the spot where it comes in blotchy and pale. You're never sure whether you think that shit is annoying or kind of edgy-cool, but right now, the way he's so, so gentle and confident against it, you think you really like it. 

"Patrick," he says, softly, against your mouth. "Do you want to start something out here, or do you wanna do it all in the bedroom?" 

Oh, god, oh geez, here it goes. "Um," you manage. "Uh, we could. Makes more sense to do it in there, I guess?" You don't have a great sense of how well the two of you could get up to some shenanigans here on his narrow futon, but you have fond, fond memories of his bed.

"What do _you_ want to do?" he prompts, again, more insistent. You're learning to recognize this tone, of his, and you're already a little worried (but like, good-worried, horny-worried, jesus fuck) about how fucking Pavlovian it's becoming.

"The bed," you say, with a little more conviction.

He smiles, inches from your face. "Thank you," he says, and he kisses you again, firmer, tongue-ier. Your neck lolls back again and your mouth just sort of - hangs, loose and kissable, taking what he gives you. He's barely touched you and your heart is _racing_.

You think you're starting to understand. 

Clayton takes your wrist, in a move you understand now, and leads you to his bedroom. He sits on the edge of the bed and positions you in front of him, standing, like on the train. Except this time he _does_ tug you forward till you're standing close to him in the vee of his spread legs, and he presses his face against your stomach and breathes in, against you, and it makes your own breath cut sharp into your lungs, the closeness and just - the _horniness_, okay, Clayton's not exactly a dirty bird the way some of the rest of you in the office can be sometimes and so it's the little things, the very delicate and deliberate things, that quick through you, about him, when you know, that he's turned on and wanting. You can feel a little bit where his beard catches in the weave of your shirt, and he's touching at your body, your thighs and your ass, catching at your hands and then running up your arms, rucking the sleeves of your hoodie up just a little bit, as he kisses at your abdomen through the worn cotton of your t-shirt, bristling and feather-light.

"Undress for me, please," he instructs, looking straight up the line of your chest at you, his eyes hooded and hungry-dark, his nimble hands cupping around the vulnerable backs of your knees. You swallow, and nod your head yes, but he - doesn't let go. Oh. Oh, so right here then. 

Still touching him, his head pulled back just enough to give you space to maneuver, you slowly, awkwardly shrug yourself out of your hoodie. You're like - uncomfortable, a little, except for it's riding right on this razor's edge of you are also _super fucking horny for this one_, your dick filling and rising in your jeans just, just _so_ fucking close to him, to the warmth of his core and his face, and you think, This is probably exactly what it's supposed to be like, he's doing an amazing job, and you also think, Jesus fuckin' christ. When the hoodie hits the floor you tug your tee off, too, pulling up from the back of the neck in a total gym-tool move, but it's the easiest way to do it with how close-crowded you are and also, look, you _are_ aware that it's kind of hot, to do, and you _do_ feel Clayton's heavy gaze shift from your face to your arms, your shoulders, just a little. He's not being subtle at all, just blatantly watching you obey his requests-but-he's-not-asking, and your whole skeleton is a whole xylophone, and your cock is _throbbing,_ and you're gonna die. 

"You okay?" he whispers, so so so quietly, checking in.

"I'm dying," you whisper back, in all honesty, "but it's because this is incredibly hot and good." He smiles just the _brightest_ fucking joyous smile and presses a little kiss to your solar plexus, and then nods just once, reminding you to continue. 

He still hasn't let you go, though, is the thing, and you're not sure how you're supposed to take your pants off like this. But you pop the button of your fly, and roll down your zipper, and your cock in your briefs surges out, and Clayton just _stares_, still, and then slides one hand up to palm blunt and heavy over the bulge, and you just _swear_.

"Fuck, christ, Clayton," you breathe out. "Please."

"Not yet," he says. "Finish up."

You nudge your waistband down as best you can, pants and underwear all at once, till they meet the place where his hands are holding you. He lets up just enough to let them by, just like the top half of you, and now you're crumpling in place, trying to stand on one foot and then the other, in the bracket of his hands and his arms and his knees, squirming out of all of your clothes. It's ungainly and you feel _vulnerable_, watched and gawked at, a good old-fashioned _compromising position_ that makes your whole neck and the strip down the center of your chest streak with embarrassed red. You finally get naked, tugging off your socks while you're down there for good measure. Clayton rubs wide and long at the backs of your thighs, now - triggering a bright cold sense memory of the last time you were naked in this room, oh god oh fuck - and nods his head appraisingly, approvingly.

"Good - job," he says, haltingly. "Um, sorry, I should have asked first, if I can - "

But you felt it. "You almost called me _good boy_ like a fucking dog," you say.

"I'm sorry, we don't have to - "

"Clay," you say, stopping him. "Point me to the part where I said I didn't like it." 

His eyes are just _so_ wide and grateful, he's looking at you like he's gotten a second fucking Christmas, and you grin, even though your whole ass face and neck and chest are blushing now, and you still kind of feel like you're going to die but in a horny way. "My sweet boy," he says, and oh it goes down _good_, your eyes fluttering shut, your cock dripping and aching hard. "Go ahead and get on your knees for me, then." 

You drop faster than you care to admit. 

You think you're starting to understand.

> **SPICY!!** Your adventure with CLAYTON has reached an end, you sweet boy. Now, if you like, start a new game over again at chapter 1, or go back a step or two if you'd like to try making some different choices. Thanks for playing GILL OR BE GILLED!


	47. Chapter 47

"I think I...would prefer...not," you say, carefully, bracing yourself for the drop of disappointment across his face. "I'm - I'm sorry, man."

But he just smiles, strokes his thumb across the back of your hand and gives a little shrug, like the thing you're declining was just, like, the last couple bites of a burrito bowl that he was otherwise just gonna throw away, or something. (What is _that_ bourbon-induced simile, yikes.) "No no no don't worry about it!" he says. "Like I said, it's not like, a, a pre-requisite, or anything. Obviously I like you too much to, y'know, have this be the thing that undoes it all, that'd be stupid."

"Aww, Clay," you say, simpering fake-sweet and fluttering your eyes like a dipshit, "I like you too much too." He rolls his eyes and lifts his hand from yours to cuff you in the shoulder for your idiocy, but then he stays there, curves around your bicep, leans and tugs, and now you're kissing over this crappy little table, in-public chaste but languid and tasting, your eyes slipping shut genuinely this time. There's a little noise when you pull apart that gets you feeling, as the youths say, some type of way.

"Now," you murmur, keeping your voice low and loaded, just a li'l bit horny, "please don't take this the wrong way when it comes to you just being like, regular, non-kinky on top. I'm still _very_ much a fan of that." 

"Hmm, duly noted," says Clayton, and he's looking at you, but what he's looking at is your lips, where his lips were just a second ago, and it's a li'l bit hornier, even, than what you were doing. You let just the very front edge of your tongue rest out on your bottom lip, a little, where you know he can see it. He brings his hand up to stroke full-palmed and contemplative at his beard. 

"In fact if you come over tonight I can demonstrate how big of a fan I am." You don't, like, on purpose stress the word _big_, because that would be way, way too braggadocious and horny of you. But it's like, there. 

"I believe I could be - amenable to this proposition," he teases, and that's when Brian swoops back in from the bathroom, immediately scooping up his fresh glass of beer.

"Mm, see, all I heard was Clayton saying _proposition_, and now I'm real concerned about what I just walked in on," he says, tipping his glass to the two of you just slightly before he drinks.

"Ordinarily I'd say you've got this all wrong," you tell him, "but unfortunately for you, in this case, you've interpreted things exactly right." He doesn't do a spit take, because he's better than that, but when Clayton sort of sheepishly facepalms a little he does cock one eyebrow at you over the rim of his glass. 

"Oh _nooo_, Clayton Ashley, horny on main," he trills, pretend-scandalized. "Do y'all need to get out of here? Am I completing my Transformers transformation from third wheel to cockblock?"

"The worst part is those both almost sound like they could be names of actual Transformers," says Clayton, shaking his head.

"I _know_, Clayton, that's why I went with that instead of Animorphs, obviously." 

You finish your second round of drinks, because you're cool mature responsible adults who can keep hanging out with a friend at a bar even when you so very obviously want to leave and go bone. You maybe just finish round two a little more quickly than round one, is all. You let them prod you about the return of your Twitch streams, how your Kong is doing, and Brian's brain takes _Twich_ and _Kong_ and ends up reminiscing on the Tropical Freeze episode of Gill and Gilbert, and you can literally see it in his eyes, the moment he gets a patented BDG brilliant idea but isn't sharing with the class. And so now there are two elephants in the room, and you think that's your cue to leave.

"Have fun, use protection!" Brian calls back at you as he heads the other way, to a different train stop, in the January chill. 

"Don't worry, Patrick's on the pill!" Clayton calls back, and you snicker, but Brian _hoots_ with laughter, and then disappears.

"C'mon," you whisper to him, threading your hand into his (gosh, it's _cold_). "If we hustle, we can get to the good part before my roommate's back from his late shift."

> THIS PART OF YOUR ADVENTURE CONTINUES IN [CHAPTER 45](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21918814/chapters/52318534)!


	48. Chapter 48

You deal with Simone, as promised, so to speak. She needs very little _dealing_, of course, she knows something broke bad and it's her fault and she's already apologizing profusely the moment you emerge, and you're not the boss of her, but you assure her it's not you she should be, _don't apologize to me, I'm an asshole and it's fine, but you damn well better apologize to Clayton_. You think you sound like an asshole, still. You are probably going to feel like you look and sound and act like an asshole for some time yet. At least this is a moment where you can kind of get something out of it. 

You switch to a different computer, so you're not right next to him anymore, and open your work back up. Clayton, ever the consummate _fucking_ professional, surfaces from the break room much, much sooner than you were anticipating and gets right back to the work he was doing, too. If he's maybe a little quieter, a little more nose-to-the-grindstoney, well, you're the best at reading him and you're probably the only one who sees it. You don't say a word to him, because that seems like the shittiest move you could possibly make right now. He doesn't talk to you, either.

Out loud, anyway.

_>Hey I saw where you un-collab'd on Unraveled?  
>What's up with that!!_

_>Uuhhhhh well  
>I just like  
>Assumed_

_>You know what they say :o_

_>well, sure....  
>Well shit, man. Are you sure?_

_>Patrick what part of "I don't want to do this at work" are you not getting here_

It takes you a while, but you eventually put yourself back on Unraveled, and then answer, _ok._ Because you can't really argue with that.

January is a thing that happens. You kind of sink more into your own work, get a little less social with the airquotes Video Team; you hunker down into your first solo project of the year, this video you're actually pretty excited about that looks into the way hard-magic systems, like those that crop up in a lot of RPGs, can be used as storytelling devices that shape the universe of the game around them. (You wonder how many times you're allowed to reference Avatar: The Last Airbender in a video that's still ostensibly about gaming.) You get your Twitch streams up and running again, for real this time, not just the empty promises of Thanksgiving; you hang out with Thomas and Allegra more, to just get your head out of the fishbowl of the office. You churn out a couple illustrations that will make their way into designs for the brand spankin' new Polygon Dot Com _merch store_, launched around the holidays to sell Brian and Jeff's ridiculous E3 fashion I Love Eating Ass tee and looking to take off more in the new year. (You draw the video team as zombies. Jenna's side-shave is just, like, her brains coming out, you're kind of proud of it.) 

Clayton works hard, stays cool, keeps his distance. It's a little bit of an elephant in the room but it's like, a baby elephant. He was right, of course - it's definitely worked out better having cut the clusterfuck off at the head, rather than finding out further down the road that the two of you were on different pages. He was right, too, when he said things were probably gonna be okay. By the time you get studio time booked for Unraveled, it's more of an office-wide _joke_ than anything else - and the best part is, the butt of the joke is _Simone_. For opening her bigass mouth and immediately sticking her foot in it. You're glad everyone else can laugh at it, and you hold out hope that eventually, you and Clayton can too. 

You are _overjoyed_ at how well the Unraveled shooting goes. Brian looks impeccable, a real return to form after the high percentage of non-suited-up content in the past few installments; his new look is crisp and plum-purple, he apparently got it for Christmas. The detailed look at time travel across multiple games, as opposed to a deep dive into one game's specific lore, sets a good tone for the future of season three. It helps that he's getting absolutely, _spiralingly_ existential, about the passage of time, the new decade and his upcoming birthday, and it's no _shaving his mustache on camera_ or anything, but he was never gonna top that, was he. He mugs to both cameras, pulls faces at yours that has Clayton _cracking_ behind his, silent to preserve the take but doubled almost all the way over. It's great to see Brian work his magic, but it's even better to see Clayton laughing. Some last little tethered-down thing in your gut floats free.

You've got the room for two nights, so you don't push yourselves too hard on this one, just get to a good stopping point and pack up to do the rest on Wednesday. You and Clayton rebundle some cables and set the cameras to export while Brian changes back into his regular-boy clothes.

"You good?" you ask him, under your breath, trying to be gentle. You've been trying to check in with him when you can, and you're still afraid you're not doing it in a way that's anything but awkward, but it feels, you dunno. Important. The _good friend_ move.

"Yeah, totally," he says, smiling. "Good shoot."

"God, yeah, it really was," you say, and you let that be enough.

Clayton heads out first, leaving you and Brian to finish everything up, promising you guys are still good for your semi-traditional drinks after the shoot wraps for good. You think someone else has the room again between now and then, so you try to get it set back up to as defaulty-normal as possible, and you slowly realize that Brian just. Isn't helping. You're doing all the work yourself and he's just kind of standing there, _looking_ at you, hands propped on his cocked hips, his lower lip snagged ever-so-slightly between his teeth. 

He's out of the suit, back into that not-quite-white button-up with the, the _mandarin collar_ or whatever, and his hair is wild from the shoot and he looks, uh. Good, is the thing. You're not sure how you feel about that, and you swallow, hard.

"Ca-aaan I help you?" you quip, still a little hunched over, glancing back at his stationary form.

"Can I do something that's maybe a little bit stupid?" he asks.

"Oh, absolutely," you say. "I'm the last person who could get away with intelligence-shaming around here."

He takes the couple strides he needs to to get right up in your business, and you straighten up to meet him because you're still a little confused, and then he kisses you. And oh, okay, now you're getting it. 

He's got one hand sort of curved around the side of your neck, warm and confident, and you lean into it, lean into the press of his mouth against yours. Shit, you even part your lips, let him slide his tongue smoothly inside, tangle up with it as your hands come to rest lightly, tentatively, still pretty confusedly on his waist. Before you know it you're moving, he's steering you around to press you into the wall, and he kisses harder, so fucking _pleased_ with himself, that it's dizzying. You think you make some sort of embarrassing little sound. That might have been him, though, because you _are_ kissing back. It's - christ, okay, it's actually pretty amazing. Being a responsible adult and breaking your mouths apart fucking blows.

"Brian," you choke out, when you finally manage to do it. "Okay, _damn_, but like - "

"I know, I know, I'm sorry," he says. "You were into it though?"

"I - kind of was?" you admit. He doesn't _do_ a victory fistpump, but you can see it in his eyes. 

"Look, I - tell you the truth I was kind of thinking about asking you out, when we got back from break, ever since that party. You sang _karaoke_ with me, Patrick, you gotta know that's flirting in Gilbert." Yeah, you can't disagree with that, actually. You nod your head so he'll continue, since he very obviously isn't done. "But then the whole thing with Clayton happened, like, so fast - "

"_So_ fast," you agree, because jesus christ what a whirlwind hot mess.

"And I didn't want to be like, Hey, heard you just fucked up real hard, might I offer you an experience with me, instead, hi I'm Brian David Gilbert, I'm an assclown." He sort of laughs at himself, a little, and he's so close that you feel the huff of his exhale against your neck. His shoulders shrug up tense. "But you're so freaking _cute_, I'm gonna lose my mind, _uughh_, and you guys seemed like. Okay? Do you think it would be okay?" 

In lieu of a verbal answer, _you_ kiss _him_ this time. This time it's definitely him who makes that noise, a soft satisfied whimper into the pocket of your mouth, as you wrap your arm further around his waist and draw him in, touching at his long soft hair, tilting your head for a better angle, _kissing_ him, _jesus_ he tastes good. It's probably a little too hot 'n' heavy for work, even if it's later and most people have left the building already, but he's so warm and responsive against you and just the idea of kissing him - even if you still can't figure out, in your spinning dizzy head, if it's an amazing idea or a really, really stupid one - is something that seems nearly impossible to resist. 

(You remember, the brief flicker of _Gill and Gilbert_ in your soul, at the party. Maybe it's just these fucking _rooms_.)

He's first to break it off, keeping his face pressed to yours even as he does, rolling his cheek flush to your cheek, staying close. "Pat."

"Mmm?"

"Pat that wasn't an answer."

"Whaddyou mean."

"Pat." He does finally pull away, all the way away, putting a foot or so between the two of you. He looks so good it makes you mad - when you're a wreck you just look a fucking wreck. "Are you and Clayton - good?" he says. "Are _you_ good? If we start something, start _this_ now, it's not just gonna implode and be weird as hell in a couple of weeks, right?" 

Fuck, _fuck_. His eyes are wide and serious, and now you _both_ have to be the responsible adults. Which, again, still _blows ass_, but it's actually a very reasonable question that you should probably figure out a reasonable _fucking_ answer to, god, you owe him - you owe _both of them_ that much. Poor, sweet, beautiful Clayton. Shit. 

You pinch the bridge of your nose and let out a long sigh, and his body tilts in understanding. Okay, so which is it, Patrick - 

An amazing idea?

Or a really, really stupid one?

> YOU'RE GOOD TO GO. YOU PROMISE IT WON'T GET WEIRD. --> PROCEED TO [CHAPTER 50](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21918814/chapters/52318723).  
BRIAN'S RIGHT AND HE SHOULD SAY IT, UNFORTUNATELY. --> PROCEED TO [CHAPTER 51](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21918814/chapters/52318786).


	49. Chapter 49

So you deal with Simone. You try not to ever be, like, a shitheel who bosses people around just because you're older or meaner or whatever, but you borrow a little bit from your exposure to the military and get her to fucking apologize to Clayton as soon as she gets a good moment. She at no point protests this. Everyone who witnessed the horrible events of this day, January 2nd 2020, seems to shut the fuck up and chill out and understand that this has been bad. For now, that's honestly all you needed.

Clayton, ever the consummate _fucking_ professional, surfaces from the break room much, much sooner than you were anticipating and gets right back to the work he was doing. If he's maybe a little quieter, a little more nose-to-the-grindstoney, well, you're the best at reading him and you're probably the only one who sees it. He even grumbles at you when you try to take yourself off Unraveled, to give him at least one shooting project that you're not part of, he actually _insists_ you stay on, and so for him, you do. You still work with him on just like, _every fucking video_. There's a Vibe, tee-em, for sure, but people are pretty good about letting the elephant hang out in the room unbothered for the most part when you're shooting together, and look, despite how terrible it turned out for the two of you, out of context? If this had happened to someone else? 

It's kind of _really fucking funny_. 

Its eventual transformation into an office-wide joke is inevitable, and the best part is, when it finally arises, the butt of the joke, the victim, is absolutely one hundred percent _Simone_. For having the loudest mouth of any living woman, and for frequently sticking her foot in it before her brain catches up. For putting you and Clayton on blast like she hasn't done at least fourteen more salacious things since Thanksgiving, some of them in videos. You try to embrace it, because she does kind of deserve it, a little, as far as you're concerned. It's almost cathartic to laugh at yourself via laughing at someone else. Probably, like, _healthy_, or something, someone would say, to be able to do. And it's not a _perfect_ outcome, because you can tell (_you_, not the general You but you) that Clayton still kind of hates that it's even a thing in the first place. He comes out less, stays on his grind a little harder, shows up as online on Steam a little bit more grinding away at timesuck roguelikes. But considering the most buckwild of circumstances that it arose out of, it is, probably, the best outcome you could have hoped for. 

The butt of the joke is always Simone. The butt of the joke is never you, even though you probably deserve it too, even though you _did_ cry a little bit alone in your room that Thursday night about how royally you fucked this up and about how hurt Clayton must be and about how you ruin everything you touch, and oh god, that passage-of-time-existential-dread flavor that's been added to the seasonal affective disorder this year is a hell of a drug, huh. And the butt of the joke is never, _ever_ Clayton. You make sure of that. 

(It's when Clayton can finally get in on the joke, and laugh about it - calling Simone out at the January Overboard shoot when Jeff starts throwing marbles around and one nearly catches her in the teeth, something soft and snide about her _big mouth_ \- said just the way everyone else says it, albeit daintily from behind the camera - that's when you know that things really _are_ gonna be okay. Like he promised.)

In the meantime, it has still been pretty, uh, _devastatingly awkward_ to be working with Clayton all the time, so you've been really trying to lean into your work that doesn't involve him, which is basically zero of it except...the merch store, the merch _team_ that Jeff has somehow inherited the responsibility of. No one else on the video team is anywhere near as involved with it as you are; there's obviously a lot of Unraveled stuff in the pipeline, but Brian's been mostly an ideas guy, and Jenna and Simone just want to be the apparel models for the photos on the web storefront. Clayton barely gets a hand on that ball at all. Drawing a bunch of zombies and swords and stuff, and hanging out with fiery, constantly-quipping Jeff while doing so, has been a fucking solace. He also, blessedly, wasn't there when Simone's utter detonation of your shit actually went down, so he doesn't know its entire miserable reality, just what he's heard second-hand - and you can't lie and say you don't hugely appreciate that not everyone just _knows_.

You've spent...a lot of time with Jeff, now. You've been to his apartment. (You didn't know he had a cat!) You've listened to a couple episodes of his podcast. You invited him out for drinks, after night two-of-two shooting the mid-January Unraveled, as kind of a buffer so it wasn't just Brian being subjected to you-and-Clayton awkwardness; y'all are _good_, by then, and getting better every day, but you think it'll always probably be better in a bigger group, now. But Jeff was a _blast_ that night, and Clayton seemed the best he'd been yet. You figure you didn't get deep enough into it in the first place for it to have been a total heartbreak. Just kind of a clusterfuck.

You think - maybe you're better at it when it doesn't go too deep.

You think, the way Jeff was laughing full-body at your mediocre jokes at the bar, or the way he isn't afraid to touch you when he's joking back at you, out in the world or back in the office hunched over a merch-doodlin' tablet, or the way you sucked a lime out of his fucking hand at the holiday afterparty and he just _let you_ \- maybe it doesn't _have_ to be too deep. 

By the end of the month, your biggest fear is just that Clayton's editing Overboard in such a way that you're gonna look like an even bigger dumbass than usual, and even then you'd probably deserve it. You're finally in a place where, like, if you - if you _made a move_, gross, but if you, y'know, took some action, toward another person, even someone that he knows, you don't think it would be weird. You _hope_ it won't be weird. It's Friday and he's wearing one of his expensive Pokemon shirts and he looks like he's in a pretty great mood, so you think you're probably in the clear to - 

To ask Jeff if like, maybe, he'd want to go grab lunch with you? 

"Ooh, sure, okay," he says, and his cheeky smile is suddenly one of the most reassuring things you've ever seen. 

Being with Jeff, spending time with Jeff, is...remarkably _easy_, you realize. He's a talker, and every other sentence out of his mouth is a joke, so you're both relieved of the burden of having to come up with something to say that isn't totally moronic and also never at a loss for a way to interact, laughing, riffing, groaning when he hits a stinker (they're all stinkers, but you kind of love them anyway). He's also just - _cute_, okay, almost to the point of being a little nauseating if you weren't kind if into it; adorable little smiles, dressed just like one tier sharper than the level most people come into the office at (especially you, god) and fucking working it, letting you swap sushi rolls from his plate to yours and vice versa without complaining. His cheeks turn so _pink_. He's bubbly, and quick, and so _unlike_ you. So unlike Clayton. You're thinking, now, that maybe that was the entire problem in the first place.

The server comes with the check, and you can hear Jeff about to ask if it can be split but you just wave him off.

"Okay," he says, "well, at least let me Venmo you."

"No way," you insist. "If I ask someone out I'll pay for it, Jeff, at least the first time."

"Oh-_ooooh_" is sort of the noise his mouth makes, and his whole expression kind of sinks inward, his brow furrowing and his mouth pursing together and twisting up. You, regrettably, interpret this move exactly the correct way. You anticipate the next sentence out of his mouth and are already cringing: 

"This was supposed to be a date?" 

"_Yes?_" you offer up through your grimace.

"Oh, Patrick," he says - "No."

"O - okay, but like." You frown, because he's still shaking his head, but! Like! "I dunno, I really like you," you say, and it sounds pretty lame but it _is_ the truth, okay. "We did some horny shit at that Christmas party. It felt like it could be - good. Or something, at least."

"Oh, for sure, you are _totally_ hot," says Jeff. "I'm gonna takes it where I sees it, baybee. And I love a good scandalous office hookup as much as the next boy. But - no offense - that thing with ol' mister Clayton was a _mess_."

Okay, that's...fair. "That's fair," you admit.

"I kind of - don't want to be involved in that? Even in this like outside way? The _drama_," he says. "And I for _sure_ don't want to be like...the next person that your mess happens to. No offense."

"Fuck you, I am offended this time!" you snark back, even through your smile, even through your epic facepalming at your own idiot self. "Damn, fuck, I didn't sign up for roast Patrick hours."

"Oh, honey," says Jeff, "it's always roast Patrick hours. Twenty-four seven."

"Well then stick a goddamned fork in me, because my ass is _done_." 

So it...isn't a date, it turns out. You still insist on paying for his lunch, though, to thank him for his time and his kindness and his _patience,_ with you, through all of this. He's laughing, so you're laughing, because he's cute and it's contagious and you're - learning, to be better, at laughing at yourself. God it stings something fierce, though, mostly because _as usual_ you just feel like a total fucking idiot. You'd think that would get easier, huh. 

(When you land back at your computer, there's a new email from Jenna, with a cryptic subject line written only in - _binary?_ \- that you don't bother to google a translation of, and one sentence of body that just says _March I think but don't y'all jinx it you fucking weefles._ You notice in the CC-line that Brian and Simone have also gotten this email. 

Maybe your skills at being a _total fucking idiot_ are about to be useful again, after all.)

> **NICE TRY, ANYWAY!!** You've tried so hard, but your adventure has come to an end. Consider starting a new game over again at chapter 1 to pursue a different path! Or even just going back a few steps and making different choices on this one. Thanks for playing GILL OR BE GILLED!


	50. Chapter 50

You take a beat, to close your eyes, and shake your head - to clear it.

But also to say, _no_.

"I _promise_ you, it will not get weird," you assure him. His eyes are still searching your face, though, so you power forward. "Look, I'm like, a dipshit, I know, but like, okay. Okay. Let me hit you with two points."

"Hit me."

"One," you say, holding up a counting finger. "I care _a lot_ about Clayton, as a friend, and as someone I did something really shitty to. If I thought even for a second that this would make any of that worse, I wouldn't even have let you kiss me in the first place, you ass."

"Okay, valid," says Brian. "What's point two."

You finally let yourself smile at all this. "Two, kissing you was _fucking awesome_ and we should probably be doing it again."

He grins, smug and self-satisfied as hell, and thumps you back into the wall again, his mouth already on yours. You let your hands plunge into the thick of his hair and you relax into it, for just. Just a _lot_ longer than is responsible. You're easily the last two people in the office by the time all is said and done, which is - maybe for the best, actually, because he sure does _look_ like you just kissed the shit out of him, and you're probably not much better.

You swallow your pride and your lust (and whatever other deadly sins have crept up on you in the interim too, okay _Patrick_) and do the responsible-adult thing again, just one more time, on your way out. "Hey, real quick," you say.

"Mhmm?"

"Just - this," you say, with a weak gesture to the two of you, the unit of the both of you, here in the elevator down to the lobby. "Part of - part of what - before, with with Clayton, was just that it was going like. So hard, so _fast_, very much, all at once."

"You wanna just keep this super chill for now," Brian says, catching on.

"Can we _please_," you confirm. "I got a jacked-up head and an even more jacked-up track record, I don't know how to do this, my learning curve is shit." 

He pops a kiss up onto your cheek, casual as you please. "We can take this whatever speed you need to take it," he says. "I gotchu. I'm like a mountain bike, baybee."

"Nice try, but you're not baiting me into a joke about riding you."

"Curses, Pat Gill, you're too wily for my schemes." 

The elevator spits you both out, and you head out of the building, and home for the evening, alone, but doing a lot of thinking, and a _hell_ of a lot of smiling. 

For all of his manic Brian David Energy, he's _remarkably_ discreet about it at work, at least for the long stretch of the morning where the two of you are working separately. He did beat you into the office, and you did notice that he had very unsubtly brought you a coffee (the exact right order, a hefty cold brew even in January with just enough half-and-half dumped into it that it probably undercuts your otherwise badass, butch demeanor, harrumph, and how the fuck did he _know_) and left it on your desk, but even that probably flew pretty under the radar, and if not people probably just assumed he owed you one in some way. You don't say anything, either - you learned your _fuckin'_ lesson there - but you do make sure you are happily sippin' on it any time he breezes past you, on his way to meetings or video prop-making or whatever the hell it is he's doing today. 

You message him, actually, later, _thanks for the coffeeeee_.

_>i was gonna emoji at you to be obnoxious but there's no cold coffee emoji_

_>wow pressing f for patrick's artistic vision  
>(it was okay? that i got it for you?)_

Fuck, you hate that he's cute, because you can never let him know you think he's cute or he'll be fucking insufferable, but he _is_.

_>yeah that was actually Real sweet_

_>it's not too much?_

_>no, goldilocks, it's juuuust right  
>(seriously...Thank you. It's nice)_

_>nice nice nice_

And then a carefully constructed emoticon that manages to look exactly like Brian, but if he were making a Borat _my wife_ face, but rendered with punctuation, which is very impressive and annoying-genius-BDG of him. And also still just. _So_ cute.

He texts you all the time with check-ins, after that, like you opened the damn floodgates. Can he tell his sister and roommate you're together? Yes. Can he kiss you in front of people at work? Yes, but not full-on in a horny way, pervert, any more than in any public space. Are you using the word 'boyfriend'? You're thirty-two, you're literally never using that word, but if he wants to...

Well. He can, you guess. 

The new Unraveled goes up, and he and Clayton have left just a ton of your off-camera laughter in the final edit. The merch website puts out a t-shirt with your Zombie-Gon design on it, and he gets one, long-sleeved, and wears it unironically. You don't - go on _dates_, really, to dinner or to experience art in some capacity, or whatever, but the time you spend in each other's presence...increases, and you're almost never seen one without the other in a social situation. When he's not in the January Overboard, because it's a game that doesn't exactly accommodate a lot of players, it feels _weird_. You spend a lot of the shoot tossing panicked glances to Clayton behind the camera, and he just smiles and shakes his head and shrugs, sweet and unflappable. And then Jeff throws a marble at your head. So like pretty much par for the course.

(You and Brian also are definitely kissing a lot, and also frequently doing a lot, lot more than kissing. It's almost funny how easy it is to make out on a sofa, with him, shifting sideways on the cushions and sucking deep fucshia marks into his neck while he palms your cock through your pants, because - well, because you both still auto-default to him at the left end and you at the right end, and it feels comfortable, and _right_, in your gut. That you should be here next to him like this, in this exact configuration. But now with more kissing.) (Fuck, the kissing is basically the only thing that makes this any different from Gill and Gilbert, isn't it.)

It's sort of just like - a slow, frog-in-the-pot creep, of the two of you definitely flirting and goofing and making out when you get the chance, to just. To just, by mid-late February, everyone assuming that you're in this for realsies.

Maybe you're in this for realsies.

You text him, with your own question, this time.

_>okay, so, hear me out  
>Gill and Gilbert 2020_

_>:O!!! OKAY IM LISTENING_

_>...  
>no actually that's kind of all I got_

_>it needs like, a colon + pithy subtitle  
>for the pitch  
>Gill and Gilbert 2020: Gilling Me Softly  
>A Time To Gill_

_>And I Gill Haven't Found What I'm Looking For_

_>way too long but i like your spirit  
>Once Is Luck, Twice Is Gill_

_>Gill Or Be Gilled_

_>THERE IT IS, THAT'S IT, THANK YOU PATRICK,  
>okay now how the FUCK do we pitch this to tara_

You wince and take a deep breath and touch your own hair and then reach over and pet Charles, too, for good measure. Here it goes. 

_>I dunno, you're the hype man, I'm more of a technical details guy  
>you'll think of something I believe in you  
>maybe the fun cool new move is that now we're in a relationship, viewers eat that shit up, or something_

_>.....are we in a relationship, patrick?  
>with like, a capital R???_

_>well.  
>I guess we've got until tara greenlights it to figure that out_

_>welllll  
>i guess we do :)_

> **PLOT TWIST!!** Looks like you overcame your struggles with CLAYTON to achieve big things with BRIAN after all! And now your adventure has come to a delightful end. Feel free to return to chapter 1 and start a new game all over again! Also: go back a couple of steps and make different choices if you want! Your call! Thanks for playing GILL OR BE GILLED (see what I did there?)!


	51. Chapter 51

You thump your head back into the wall at your back and groan up into the ceiling. "Uuugghh, _damnit_, I hate having to be all - adult and emotionally mature and shit."

"Well, you are the old man in this configuration, so."

"Man, fuck you," you say, but you're laughing, and he's smiling, too, by the time you're looking at him again. "Okay. Shit. Okay, yeah, you fuckin' got me, dog. I _super_ just want to kiss you again - "

"Very flattering, thank you - "

"But it is uh. It is probably for the best that we not start anything, of this, this nature, right now, yes, thank you for saying something. I need to take some time and get my shit together. Everything is just so fucking - _weird_, I hate this. Is this what dating is. I got married straight out of college, my learning curve is fucked." You press the heel of your hand into your right eye, like you're trying to stop your brain from leaking out, and groan again. You're joking, but like, you're not _totally_ joking. 

"Hey, I was on that trans-Atlantic shit for a _real_ long time, your guess is as good as mine."

"Well, it sucks ass," you say, poutily, whining like a kid.

"Uh, yeah, fully agreed," says Brian. "But it's - I'm proud of you for knowing your boundaries, Pat. It's very strong and smart and powerful of you to do, we stan a self-care king."

"Shut the fuck up, oh my god." You roll your eyes at him, and follow after him, where he's starting to finally wrap up the shoot breakdown and head out of the room. "Besides," you add, a little more seriously. "It's - it's less about me, and more about Clayton."

He gives you a _hardy_ up-and-down appraising look. "Sure, Jan."

"Can you _please_ just stop speaking _memes_ at me and let's just get the fuck out of here before I change my mind and kiss you again like a fucking idiot?"

He grins like the _devil_, but you get the fuck out, and head home for the evening. 

So you take some time, and get your shit together. Nothing happens with you and Brian, nothing ever starts there; meanwhile, your disaster with Clayton is basically almost finished. You're in this funny middle limbo state of several things _not happening_ all at once, and even though it's probably where you _need_ to be, it's still shaky and weird as fuck. Oh, Unraveled comes together nicely, though; your Zombie-Gon t-shirt design goes up, and Jeff keeps you updated on the (frankly astonishing, god you can't believe people are _paying money_ for something _you drew_) numbers for the sales. You and Clayton get together a little more to start prepping for the shoot for your hard magic systems video. You keep checking up on him, and he checks up on you, too. Fuck, so does _Brian_. He'll bring you coffee apropos of nothing, or send you even weirder memes than what you send him, almost like a competition, or like a weird nerd mating ritual. 

You laugh, just like, a little more, than maybe you were doing before. It never truly gets weird to the point that your skin wants to crawl off your bones, and by late February - another Unraveled under your belts, Valentine's-themed with horrendous romanceable-NPC dialogue, an email resting in your inbox with some very vague but _very_ promising words about Cyberpunk Red - you've reached some sort of equilibrium again, and nobody talks about you and Clayton or _any_ of it anymore at all.

Except to make fun of Simone, of course.

Your friends _care about you_, a _lot_. (Even Simone.) And you will take that over a romantic relationship crashing and burning any fucking day of the year. 

You just also remind Brian, when Burger Chainz and Vang0 Bang0 return to the scene of the crime to loot that fucked-up nostalgia cafe, that a bunch of the sides on the smashed-in Magic 8 Ball give ya a hard _no_, but one of 'em just says, _ask again later_.

> **SWEET!!** Even after your huge missteps with CLAYTON, your adventure still came to an optimistic end. :) Maybe now you'd like to return to chapter 1 and start an all new adventure? Or maybe you'd prefer to go back a couple of steps and try some different choices? Either way, thanks for playing GILL OR BE GILLED!


	52. Chapter 52

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is not part of any of the narrative flowlines of GILL OR BE GILLED, but exists solely to be a place for some EXPLICIT WARNINGS about content in other chapters. If you have specific triggers that you need to check up on, I hope I have managed to include them here! Just keep in mind that information in this set of warnings **will spoil multiple parts of the game**. Proceed with that understanding in mind. Thank you! ♥

Additional/extended warnings:  
\- **Substance use:** Alcohol is mentioned in multiple parts of the game but most prominently in chapter 1 and in a subroute of the Clayton portion of the game - these are parts where characters actually get drunk, instead of just having a few casual drinks out at a bar, or something. Marijuana is mentioned in chapter 1, in one ending of the Clayton part of the game, and very briefly/offhandedly in a subroute of the Brian portion of the game - all other references to weed are just callbacks to the events of chapter 1.  
\- **Karen/Brian and Karen/Brian/Pat:** One route of the Brian portion of the game involves Brian dating Karen. Based on your decisions, this either turns into Brian dating Karen only (sorry), or Pat and Karen both dating Brian in a polyamorous V.  
\- **Pat/Brian/Clayton:** One route of the Clayton portion of the game results in Brian joining in, forming a polyamorous triad relationship.  
\- **Brian/Clayton:** One route of the Brian portion of the game involves a brief reference to Brian starting a relationship with Clayton if he and Pat don't work out.  
\- **D/s:** One route of the Clayton portion of the game has mild Dom/sub elements to it, which you can choose to continue engaging with or steer away from.  
\- **Sex acts:** Sexual acts explicitly depicted throughout this fic include frottage, hand jobs/mutual masturbation, blow jobs, anal penetration, intercrural/intergluteal sex, and rimming. There are also (tragically) non-explicit references to phone sex in one ending of the Brian portion of the game.  
\- One route of the Clayton portion of the game involves Simone unintentionally blabbing to the office that Pat and Clayton have had sex, which results in a lot of public embarrassment for the boys, especially for Clayton. If this is a trigger for you it could get dicey.  
\- One route of the Brian portion of the game culminates in massive cockblocking/coitus interruptus, whoops. This involves references to Laura having sex in a nearby room.  
\- I probably threw the word "daddy" in there a time or two but it never played out to much of an actual-kink reality, it's mostly just teasing/joking.  
\- There's a point where the Clayton route splits and two concurrent scenes depict Pat wearing two different outfits, even though they both stem from the same point and he should presumably be wearing the same clothes in both of them. but like WHATEVER FUCKIN' SUE ME THIS IS A FANFICTION and honestly if THAT'S my only continuity error I think I came out on top on this one (and if there are others I haven't noticed please don't point them out to me, mariah carey I can't read dot gif)

**UPDATE MAY 2020:** If you have already played the whole game and are looking to just go back and revisit the good endings only, here's a cheat sheet!

**Jeff good ends** \- start at chapter 10 for the "good end" sexy part, then if you want, follow to 11, and then 12 or 13 depending on your preference for romance or just FWB; ch32 is the good Jeff ending after whiffing it with Brian

**Brian good ends** \- ch25 birthday sex "true" ending, ch27 polyamory-with-Karen good ending, ch31 "cheat codes from Thomas" ending; ch30 is the cockblocked ending which is emotionally good but blueballsy lol; ch48 into 50 (romance) or 51 (platonic) is the good Brian ending after whiffing it with Clayton 

**Clayton good ends** \- ch45 more vanilla "true" ending, ch46 D/s ending; ch19 into 21 is the good Clayton ending that comes out of whiffing it with Jeff, and ch43 is the PatBriClay triad ending! 

thanks again for reading, love you guys ;) 


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